Heart of Glass
by Chiwowwow2
Summary: How season one could have happened with Jo there. Blair/Jo. Side Cindy/Sue Ann.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's note:** This is my take on how the first season could have happened if Jo had been sent to Eastland a year sooner. Basically all of the inevitable events (the poem assignment, the sex-ed class, the appearance of Mr. Garrett, etc.) will still happen. The difference will be how Jo's presence affects everything—and it most definitely will. As time goes on, the dissimilarity will become more obvious. As the summary states, this will be mainly Jo/Blair with some Cindy/Sue Ann. All errors are mine.

* * *

There is no way of knowing when something life-changing is happening to you how much it's going to impact your life. The milk expires so you run out to buy some more. Will you be reunited with an old friend at the store or will you get in a car accident at the intersection and never see your loved ones again? The shady man living in the apartment next to yours asks if he can come in and use your phone. Will he rob you of everything or gratefully make that phone call and leave? Your mom tells you that due to your transgression, you will be sent to Eastland School for Girls. Whether or not this will ruin your life has yet to be determined.

_I love you but I'm also worried about you. You've got to clean up your act. You don't want to end up like your father, do you?_

Those words echo in Jo's mind the entire drive to her new fancy pants prep school. She hears them loud and clear over the roar of her chopper.

_I love you but I'm also worried about you._ Rose Polniaczek was a hard-working single mother fighting to keep her head above water. Working double shifts waitressing wasn't cutting it, and to make matters worse, Jo was changing. Rose feared that her inability to provide guidance in addition to Jo's toxic environment was proving disastrous for her daughter.

_You've got to clean up your act._ Breaking city curfew. Cutting class. Vandalizing a park. Assaulting a police officer. Bullying. Her record was ever-growing, and it had to be stopped. Jo, a girl with a golden heart, was turning to stone right before her mother's eyes. With Rose's busy schedule, there was no one around to pull Jo from the wreckage she was creating for herself. Removing her from the equation entirely was the only way the woman knew how to stop the madness.

_You don't want to end up like your father, do you?_Jo's father. Charlie Polniaczek. He was the brunette's hero—her very own Superman, she had once called him—from the day she was born until the unripe age of 12 when she woke up one morning to her crying mother and a goodbye letter. Things were never the same for the two. The Polniaczeks were not doing the greatest financially so ego-wounded Charlie made the decision to desert his family. This is what stuck out most to Jo when her mother was explaining why she had to leave home. At first she didn't understand the logic, and an intense argument followed the news of Jo being sent away. Why should she have to leave her mom in order to avoid becoming a person like the man who left her mom? But after she stormed out, rode her bike for hours, and cleared her head, everything made sense. She understood. Riding her bike always seemed to do that much for her. Never in her life would Jo spiral so far into delinquency that she would become her deadbeat dad. That was one promise to herself and to her mom that she would not break. If staying out of trouble and working hard in school would make things easier on her mother, Jo would try her hardest.

And so here Jo is, signed in at the gate and parking her bike on the walkway in front of the address she was given for Dorm A. She slides off, leans her motorcycle on its kickstand, and looks up at the large building.

"So this is Eastland," the girl says to herself, inspecting it and concluding that it's not so bad. Peekskill has trees and grass and little flowers all over the place, and Jo decides that maybe she likes that kind of stuff after all.

Just as she takes a step forward, ready to check out her new living situation, a squealing pig goes zooming by, right between her legs. Jo jumps out of the way just in time for some guy in a hat to come barreling after it.

"S'cuse me! Sorry!" comes from the person with a high-pitched voice. _That's not a guy_.

"Hey, watch it or I'll be having your stupid pig for breakfast!" hollers the livid girl.

After inspecting her bike and making sure it hasn't been harmed in the "stampede," Jo stomps her way through the door of what she was told is supposed to be the common room. The girl with the pig is already inside, talking to an older woman with red hair.

"Is this where I'm supposed to be? Is this the Eastland common room? Are you," she points to the woman who is now facing Jo, "Mrs. Garrett, the housemother?"

"You must be…Jo." She steps closer, a warm smile on her face. "It is and I am. It's nice to meet you."

"We already have a delivery boy," announces a girl with golden blonde hair, a button-up blouse with one too many buttons not buttoned, and heavy eye shadow. "Steve dropped off our groceries yesterday."

"Delivery boy?" Jo asks incredulously. "Give me a break!"

This isn't the first time the girl has been mistaken for a boy. It happens at least once a week back home. Yet, for some reason, having this prissy little Barbie Doll mistake her for a boy instead of it being some old lady at the Seven-Eleven on the corner makes her angry.

Removing her motorcycle helmet and letting her ponytail fall out in the open, Jo can't fight the look of disgust on her face towards the blonde—not that she's trying to fight it.

The stranger laughs an airy laugh and says to no one in particular, "I don't believe this."

"Me neither," says a boy standing in the middle of the room near Mrs. Garrett. "Remind me not to look for girls at this school, Arnold. I guess they _all_ look like boys."

The girl holding the pig gives the boy a dirty look as does Jo. He puts his hands up in mock surrender before muttering, "I'm getting outta here."

A little boy, a girl Jo's age, and an old man mention something about a fair before walking out.

Mrs. Garrett turns to the girl and instructs, "Cindy, why don't you go give that pig a bath? He's got ring around the collar all over."

As the tomboy heads to the bathroom, the stuck-up blonde says, "Aw, Cindy. Just your type."

"You probably go for taller pigs, Blair," retorts the other girl as she walks away.

Jo lets out a few _ha-ha's_, mostly to spite this Blair girl.

"What are you laughing at, Evel Knievel?"

"I still haven't figured that out," grunts the biker, stepping so close to the other girl that their noses are nearly touching. "We might need to send you off to a lab so they can tell us."

"Girls," warns Mrs. Garrett.

"The real mystery here is what that hideous thing on your face is."

"What?" Blair's hands immediately fly to her cheeks, then to her chin and forehead in a panic. "Is it a bug? Am I getting a pimple?" She rushes to the mirror and examines herself up close. "I don't see anything but flawlessness." She winks to reflection.

Jo smirks, steps closer to Blair once more, and casually answers, "Oh. I guess I was just lookin' at your face. My mistake."

The blonde growls, "Why you little…"

"Nancy! Sue Ann! Tootie! Molly! Natalie! _A-ny-bo-dy_!"

Five girls who had been standing in the back watching the little display come rushing over to their housemother, alarmed by her sudden outburst.

"What is it, Mrs. Garrett?" asks a short red-headed girl.

"Why don't you girls introduce yourselves?"

"And interrupt those two?" A sassy little girl on roller skates gives Mrs. Garrett an unmoved look. "Why would we do that?"

"Yeah, looks like Blair has finally met her match," adds a girl with blonde curly hair. Her eyebrows bounce mischievously in Blair's direction, which Blair notices because by now both girls have stopped insulting one another to listen.

"I'll be the mature one," volunteers the tallest girl, "and make the introductions. I'm Nancy. That's Natalie." She pauses for Natalie.

"Hi," greets the angelic girl.

"That's Molly."

"Hello."

"Sue Ann."

"Nice to meet you."

"That's Tootie."

"Hi."

"The girl with the pig was Cindy. And that," Nancy points, "is the only girl at Eastland who has her own dorm room and who I can only assume is _your_ new roommate…Blair Warner."

A scornful look etches its way into Jo's features as her eyes meet the eyes of her roommate.

"That's right, Nancy." The older woman steps closer to the two instant rivals and rests her hands on their shoulders. "Come on now, girls. I'm sure you'll be buddies in no time. How about it, Jo? Blair?"

"Charmed," Jo bites out.

Though seething with indignation, Blair replies, "Pleased to meet you."

Tootie elbows her best friend Natalie to get her attention and openly predicts, "This is going to be some semester."

* * *

After moving her motorcycle to a "more suitable place," as Mrs. Garrett put it when she was referring to the faculty parking garage, and taking her suitcase up to her new room, Jo trots down the stairs to see what all this Harvest Festival talk is about. There is no such thing in her hometown so she's curious. Instead, she is met with Blair moving on and saying that, more importantly, there will be a dance afterward.

_Count me out_, Jo thinks to herself.

After Blair takes another dig at Cindy—_does Blair do that to Cindy exclusively or is she that nasty to everyone?—_and Cindy threatens to beat her up, Mrs. Garrett calms the storm with a few words about being a lady. Jo scoffs at the concept of acting lady-like—_what's the point?_—and silently takes a seat on the couch.

"Don't worry," Blair smoothly replies. "I have more important things on my mind…like Greg Hockney."

"Greg Hockney!" Sue Ann jumps at the name like a cat in heat. She elbows Cindy playfully, smiles ecstatically at Blair, and says, "Oh, he's a real hunk!"

Had Jo known who the guy was, she probably would have told Sue Ann to get a grip. What creep is worth a reaction like that? Instead, she says, "Who's Greg Hockney?"

"Only the cutest boy in the eleventh grade," gushes the perkier blonde. "Isn't that right, Blair?"

"He isn't a boy. He's a _man_."

For dramatic effect, she wraps her arms around herself and smiles dreamily with her eyes closed.

"Only because he was held back twice," says Molly, always quick to be the insensitive Debbie Downer.

"_Molly!_"

"Sounds like plenty of guys back at my old school," Jo shrugs. "What do you do for men around here? I'm talking real men, not flunkies."

"You have your license _and_ you date men? How old are you?" Cindy asks curiously, walking into the room with water splashed all over the front of her shirt—from the pig bath, no doubt.

"Who said anything about a license?"

A look of understanding washes upon the girls' faces. They exchange glances with one another. It'll take some getting used to, living with someone so resilient.

"The only 'real man' that ever comes around here is…"

Cindy's answer is cut off by the appearances of Eastland's headmaster, Mr. Bradley, and biology teacher, Ms. Mahoney.

"Ah, you must be the new student."

"Jo," the girl offers, standing to shake his hand.

"Good to finally meet you. Impressive score on your entrance exam."

"Thank you, Sir," she responds but with a face that tells the other girls that Mr. Bradley is less-than-satisfactory and doesn't quite meet her standards. She might date guys outside of high school but even someone as rough and tough as Jo has to draw the line somewhere. She thinks that line is around twice her age.

Before a protesting Ms. Mahoney knows it, the girls are persuading their new headmaster into extending curfew. Jo wasn't a curfew-abider back home, but she made that promise to her mom and Polniaczeks never go back on their word. Ironically, her father taught her that. With that in mind and an 11:50 p.m. curfew tempting her, Jo concludes that she might show up to the Harvest Festival and dance after all. Sneaking out and coming back in time for the girls to come home couldn't be that hard, could it?

Bouncing from one topic to another, Mr. Bradley moves onto the subject of who will be running for Harvest Queen. That sure wasn't going to be Jo. Unsurprisingly, Blair volunteers with the automatic assumption that she's a shoo-in. Little Molly, who Jo is starting to like because of her strong moral standing and crudely blunt personality, refuses to be objectified. Then, out of the blue, Sue Ann nominates the tomboy, Cindy.

"_Cindy_?"

"Cindy's great!"

The poor girl's refusals fall on deaf ears. No one wants to hear her when she tells them to forget it. As soon as Mrs. Garrett enters the room, Nancy rushes to her side and informs the housemother of Peekskill Harvest Festival's newest Harvest Queen Candidate.

"Suuuper! Now we're going to have an honest to goodness race."

"But really, I can't," Cindy shrugs. "I don't even own a party dress."

"You can wear the one my sister gave me!" Natalie offers. "I grew out of it before I grew into it."

One last pointless attempt to deny the proposal and Cindy is on Mr. Bradley's list of contenders.

She sits down next to her best friend and admits, "Sue Ann, I've got a problem. I don't know what to do at a dance."

"My guess would be dance," Jo mindlessly suggests, sitting on the other side of Sue Ann. She has never been to a dance but not knowing what to do would not be something the brunette would fret over. Jo always figured that if she ever went to one, the only thing she would be bothered about was keeping the freaks, geeks, and perverts away from her.

"Gee, thanks for the help," is Cindy's sarcastic reply.

Sue Ann shakes her head in amusement and places a hand on the other girl's shoulder. "Don't worry, Cindy. We can teach you how. Can't we, guys?"

Nancy hurries to the stairs and turns around.

"Right! Let's go upstairs and teach her some steps. I've got some great Donna Summer records."

"Sue Ann, thanks a lot for nominating me," Cindy says before wrapping her arms around her friend. "I love you!"

"Come on," Sue Ann laughs and follows the others upstairs.

Blair stands behind the couch, observing the two. Jo had been watching as well, but knows that she must have missed something when Blair judgmentally says, "_Cindy_, what's wrong with you?"

Jo's eyes narrow, watching the scene unfold.

"What do you mean?"

"All this touching and hugging girls and 'I love you.' Boy, are you strange."

"Well I didn't mean anything." Cindy's voice is frail, her eyes filled with panic at the accusation.

"I'll just bet. You better think about what you mean," Blair warns, walking away and leaving Cindy to watch her go.

"Blair."

A stern voice that isn't Cindy's leaves her frozen in her tracks. Had she forgotten Jo was in the room? Didn't she notice?

Blair turns around to face her jean jacket-wearing, arms-crossed, standing-tall-with-an-unpleased-look-on-her-face roommate. The only thing keeping Jo from looking like a tough bar-bouncing biker chick from some gang movie is a buzz cut or a bandana.

"What was _that_ supposed to mean?"

"What?" she asks coyly.

"You know what I mean. What you just said to Cindy," Jo practically shouts, gesturing to the girl who currently looks like a dog with its tail tucked between its legs. "What were you insinuating?"

"Insinuating," Blair echoes. "That's a big word for a girl like you, isn't it?"

Jo doesn't say a word, only switches the way her arms are folded over her chest, waiting for Blair to realize that changing the subject won't work. Cindy shifts on her feet awkwardly, not used to being unable to defend herself or having someone else do it for her.

Blair sighs, looks at Cindy, and answers, "Just don't be surprised if someone who doesn't know better gets the wrong idea. The way you look and act… You're sending a message."

"And what is so wrong with the message you say she's sending?"

Jo never understood the unnecessary hate people have for people unlike themselves. Her friends back home rival anyone and everyone remotely different. Her best friend Jessie has always been the ring leader of it all. You can't be rich. You can't speak Spanish, be Spanish, or play Spanish music. You can't be gay. You can't do this or look like that. You can't be from here or go there. Jo went along with the rules because friendship and having Jessie's back was something she valued, but the fact still remained—she never understood it. Now that Jessie is out of the picture, Jo has no reason to let it continue.

Any answer Blair might have come up with is interrupted by Sue Ann hollering from the top of the stairs for Cindy to come up. The athlete looks at both girls one last time before bounding up the stairs two at a time, fleeing the scene as fast as her feet will carry her. Jo shakes her head furiously at the other girl and grabs her shiny red helmet from where it hangs off of the banister.

"Where are you going?"

"Anywhere that's away from you."

* * *

"Hey, where's the fire?"

Jo slips her helmet off and slides it under her arm. She had entered the common room, refreshed and levelheaded after her ride. Sue Ann and Tootie flew down the stairs and only stopped running to Mrs. Garrett's bedroom door when Jo called after them.

They turn around in unison, and Tootie explains, "Cindy's dropped out of the Queens race."

"She's locked herself in our room, and she won't talk to anyone," says Sue Ann. "We were just about to see if Mrs. Garrett could help."

"Now just hang on," Jo pacifies, gesturing with her hands like she's patting down the excitement. "Don't get your pantyhose in a bunch. Maybe I can help."

"You?"

"You hardly know her," Tootie responds, hands on hips. "What could you possibly say to Cindy that Mrs. Garrett couldn't do ten times better?"

The brunette glares at the prepubescent girl and replies, "Where I'm from, you depend on your friends when you're in a bind. You don't go crying to your mommy or daddy every time you break a nail or step on one. Give me ten minutes. If she isn't out by then, you can send for help."

_Knock. Knock. Knock._

Cindy yells from the other side of the door, "Go away. I don't want to talk to anyone."

"Cindy, it's Jo," she shouts back with her face right next to the door. "I'm the girl you almost ran over with your hog."

Natalie turns to Molly and whispers from behind Jo, "Cindy has a motorcycle too?"

"The Harvest Festival pig, Dummy," Molly says with a playful roll of the eyes.

"The girl from downstairs," comes from the other side of the door.

"Yeah. Hey, listen. Do you think we could maybe have this conversation in the same room? If you don't let me in, I'm just gonna go get some tools and pry the door off."

A quiet click of the door knob and Jo is on the other side, watching as Cindy retreats to where she had previously been sitting on a small study desk. She begins punching the pocket of her baseball glove with vigor.

"What's this I hear about you dropping out of that race?" Jo cautiously prods. "Don't you want to see the look on Blair's face when you win?"

"Jo, look at me. I like football jerseys and pants. There's nothing about me that's feminine. I'm not Blair. I'd much rather have a baseball glove with a good pocket."

"Look at _me_," Jo laughs and plucks at her tee shirt. "I've never worn a pair of heels in my life, and my bike is the only thing I care about. What you wear and what interests you don't make you who you are. If that were true, I'd be Easy Rider and you'd be Willie Randolph. "

"Reggie Jackson," Cindy corrects, cracking a small smile. It fades as quickly as it appears, and shame takes over. "She was right about me."

"Hey, don't listen to what that know-nothing twit said downstairs. She's just worried about you crushing her at the festival. Getting inside your head was probably her way of knocking out the competition. If you want, I can go knock out _your_ competition."

The sound of cracking knuckles resonates through the room.

"No, Jo. I… I mean it. What she said wasn't wrong. I'm _not_ normal."

At first Jo thinks she hears Cindy wrong. Or that she's misinterpreting what the girl is telling her. The longer the silence lasts, the clearer things become. No words come to Jo's mind. She rubs her neck anxiously, looking up at the ceiling and internally cursing whoever is listening for putting her in a situation where her response could make or break an insecure girl. It isn't that Jo doesn't accept this part of Cindy. It's that she knows what the world is like and how nasty of a place it can be for minorities. She was part of the problem until today after all.

"That's… Well… Err, okay."

"It's funny," Cindy sighs in relief as she slides off of the surface of the desk and over to Jo. "If I were talking to anyone else, I never would have considered telling the truth. I barely know you, but I guess I just felt like…like you wouldn't tell me I was confused or hadn't found the right boy. What you did for me downstairs, defending me in front of Blair and all, meant a lot to me."

Jo smiles at the possibility of having someone here she can call a true friend. One that doesn't come with conditions the way Jessie does.

"No problem. So what if you're not normal? I bet you've got a killer right hook judging by the way you punch that glove," she says, pointing to it, "and as far as I'm concerned, that matters way more than who you wanna slow-dance with."

Cindy mirrors the brunette's smile and says, "Thanks, Jo. Blair might not be over the moon about you being here, but I am. I don't know what I would have done if you hadn't shown up today."

* * *

"I hope you don't plan on showing up to the dance in _those_."

"What's wrong with these?"

"Well they're jeans, for one." Blair's hands are planted firmly on her dress-clad hips. "I could understand if you were bringing a change of clothes like some girls do but it doesn't appear that you are. Secondly, they're just plain tacky. Look at them. They have oil stains!"

"I happen to like these jeans," Jo is quick to defend. "They have a history."

"That much is obvious." After giving Jo a once-over in full-on critique-mode, she adds, "And that hair. You don't really expect a boy to dance with you with your hair like that, do you? Nobody dons a ponytail to a dance." When Jo says nothing and for the most part doesn't respond with her features either aside from a cold stare, Blair adds, "I'm only trying to help."

Jo pretends to be moved, placing her hand on her heart, overcome with faux emotion. "Wow, I could have made a huge mistake by showing up in clothes that I like and a hairstyle I feel comfortable with. Thanks for the heads up, Marcia."

One step—two—three steps closer to Jo, Blair's face is unreadable. Is she going to say something rude or boast about herself? Jo can't tell.

"I know you don't like me, but I _am_ trying to save you the misery of being a wallflower all night—not that I know from experience," she says, flipping her hair over her shoulder in trademark Blair Warner fashion.

"Thanks but I won't be going to the dance."

"Why not?" Blair's eyebrows are scrunched, this being one curveball from her roommate that she did not see coming. "_Everyone_ goes to the dance."

"Not me." Jo shrugs on her heavy leather jacket that she removed from her luggage minutes prior, knowing the October night weather will be less kind than it had been earlier today. "I plan on riding to the festival behind the bus on my bike and eventually sneaking away until it's time to be home."

"But you'll miss the crowning of the Harvest Queen!"

"Yeah, so?"

"Don't you want to see me win?" Jo blinks. Blair tries again. "Don't you want to see Cindy win second or third place? You two _are_ such good friends now from what I hear."

Jo rubs her eye and sighs. "If it's all the same to you, I'd rather do my own thing tonight. I just want to get away from here for a little while. There's no space, no freedom."

The blonde slumps slightly and shrugs in defeat. Truth be told, Blair doesn't know why she was pushing the subject so hard. It just isn't like an Eastland girl to not want to join in on the fun and games. But Jo isn't like everyone else, Blair is beginning to notice.

* * *

The Harvest Festival goes off without a hitch. Tug of war, bobbing for apples, hay rides, pie-eating contests, a few carnival rides… Everyone has a blast. Mrs. Garrett monitors the girls of Dorm A from afar but makes sure they all stay out of trouble. Nancy mostly walks around, occasionally stopping to gab with friends, her hand never leaving the hand of her boyfriend, Roger. Natalie sets the record for youngest pie-eating winner, and then she and Tootie run (or roll, in Tootie's case) around gossiping. Sue Ann, Jo, Tootie, Natalie, and Molly join Cindy in the Tug of War games, and their team achieves victory. Then the two blondes opt for a hay ride with a couple of boys from Bates Academy while Molly buddies up with Natalie and Tootie. Jo soaks up the atmosphere in solidarity after Tug of War and even stops to talk with Mrs. Garrett for a few minutes. Blair spends the evening with Greg Hockney—she talks about herself, he talks about how attractive she is. A match made in heaven. When Jo spots the two love birds sharing cotton candy on the Ferris wheel about an hour after the girls arrive, she thinks to herself that she disagrees with what she was told earlier that day. He is hardly "baby-turtle cute" like Shaun Cassidy or "Mr. Suave-and-Rugged" like Burt Reynolds. The sideburns are a definite point deduction. If Blair were within earshot, Jo would have made a joke just to fire the other girl up.

Once it hits eight o' clock, the crowd is led over to a big building where the words "MESS HALL" are stenciled in paint on the wall by the door. Jo decides to go in and check it out before she slips out for the night. Her way of thinking is that if she makes her rounds and lets people know she showed up, there's less chance of her getting caught. By now, most girls have already snuck off to change into their formal attire and reapply make-up, but she spies a handful of stragglers making a beeline for the restroom in their day clothes.

Some high-pitched guy singing about dancing the night away is the first record to be played. Jo can't wait for the disco fad to die. She shutters and keeps walking. Nancy is the first person she recognizes so she approaches her.

"Jo! Hi!"

"Hey," Jo coolly greets.

"This is Roger, my boyfriend. Roger, this is the new girl I was telling you about, Jo." The two strangers wave awkwardly. "That's, uh, some outfit you got on. I've never seen anyone wear jeans to a dance before." She laughs nervously, almost wishing she hadn't commented on Jo's attire in the first place.

"At least now you don't have to worry about me wearing the same dress as you," Jo tries to joke.

"_Right_. Good thinking." Nancy smiles genuinely, warming up to this wildcat. "Oh there's Annie!" With a little tug on Roger's hand, Nancy excuses herself and hurries away.

The next track is something by the Bee Gees. _Ugh_. Jo wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this a week ago, and she can imagine what her friends would say if they saw her now. Jessie would call her a good-for-nothing sell-out. _Forget making appearances_. Searching for the door is Jo's only mission at this point. Pushing past whoever comes into her path and ignoring the _hey's_ and _watch it's_, Jo finds herself bumping chest to chest with none other than the girl she despises.

"_Oomph_. Excuse you!"

"Excuse _you_. Can't you see I'm trying to get past?"

Blair clicks her tongue and arches her eyebrows. "The way a bulldozer tries to get past a building, I see."

Jo's eyes narrow. "Well you _are_ a mighty, mighty Brick House."

"Ahem. Blair, are you going to introduce us?"

Jo and Blair both turn to face Blair's date. He has this sort of predatory look in his eye as he shines his toothpaste commercial smile at the brunette. They both look at him in disgust.

"Greg, Jo. Jo, Greg." Blair lets out an audible _hmph_ the moment he winks at the other girl. "Greg, you wouldn't mind getting me some punch would you?"

"Not at all." With a short glance at his date and then back to Jo, he offers, "Would you like some?"

"No thanks."

Jo smiles at him uncomfortably so he'll leave. He nods and slips through the sea of people. Blair is fuming. She doesn't know why, but she is positively fuming. The nerve of Greg. The nerve of _Jo_ for provoking him. What ever happened to guys without wandering eyes, and whatever happened to girls who didn't try to steal other girls' boyfriends?

"What was that?"

"What was what?"

"Back off, would you? He's mine. He might ask me out tonight, and I really can't have you or anyone else ruining my chances of Greg and I going together."

"Hey, you got it all wrong. I wasn't trying to invade your turf. I'm not that kind of girl." Blair purses her lips and diverts her eyes to Greg at the punch bowl, unsure if she can trust someone she doesn't know. If the tenderness in her voice is any indication, Jo seems to be telling the truth. "Besides, he's a Grade A creep and I was just trying to get through so I could get outta here."

"You're still doing that? I thought maybe you decided to stay until nine to watch me in all my glory. The ceremony is really something." If Jo didn't know any better, she would swear Blair actually wants her to be there for support and stuff. The blonde looks around briefly. "What if Mrs. Garrett finds out you aren't where she thinks you are? You could get in big trouble."

"Curfew isn't 'til 11:50. I'll be home by then. If Mrs. G asks where I am, just tell her you saw me earlier and know I'm around somewhere."

Blair crosses her arms. "Why should I cover for you?"

"Because if you don't," Jo moves so close to Blair that she can feel her breath on her skin, "I'll rat you out. Everyone will know how you treated Cindy earlier."

Blair takes a step back, needing to put distance between them. "Point made," is her response. Jo says nothing more, only looks at her for a few more seconds before walking around Blair and heading toward the door. Blair calls to her retreating figure, "Where are you going?"

The biker stops roughly fifteen feet away, turns around to face her, and rests her hand on the door frame.

"You gotta come with me to find out," she shouts over the music.

Blair laughs haughtily but saunters over. "Are you suggesting that I leave the dance, abandon my almost-boyfriend, and give up my crown less than an hour away from the announcement to ride on the back of your hopper?"

"It's chopper."

"Whatever."

Jo smiles to herself, fighting off the laugh that is bubbling up inside of her, and thinks about how crazy this is. She is wasting precious time trying to convince someone she_doesn't_ like to spend the night with her. Why can't she seem to back down when it comes to Blair? It's one thing to show someone you aren't afraid of them. It's another thing entirely to convince them to leave their would-be boyfriend behind and share an experience on her most prized—most _intimately cherished_ possession.

"All I'm saying is that you won't ever know where I'm going unless you come with me."

Unfortunately for Jo, her mouth moves before her brain thinks around Blair. Does she really want this stuck-up rich girl to come with her?

"Get real. You would probably leave me on the side of some dirt road or take me to one of your gang meetings in Brooklyn."

"I'm from The Bronx," Jo corrects.

"Like that's any better."

"Have it your way," the brunette shrugs nonchalantly. "Stay here and do the same thing that you've done for—what was it, two years in a row? It's no skin off my back." She flips up the collar on her leather jacket, slips her hands in her pockets, and steps out into the chilly night air.

"Wait!"


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's note:** Un-beta'd as usual. Just assume that every chapter after this is also un-beta'd unless stated otherwise. Also, sooo sorry for the delayed update. I was kind of convinced for a while that no one was interested in the fic so I wasn't working on it, and then I realized I had reviews. That fueled my drive to finish the chapter. So thank you, my lovely reviewers!

* * *

"I told you I'd get you home alive."

"Your definition of alive is questionable."

The voices of two curfew-breaking teenagers have two expecting adults on their feet in an instant. As if Medusa herself had frozen them in place with one look, Blair and Jo stop moving the moment they see who has been waiting up for them.

"Girls! You're back!" Mrs. Garrett is so happy she could cry.

Mr. Bradley had rejected her plea to call for help with the reasoning that word would get out of the police being called and parents would be furious about the school's carelessness with their students. He wasn't about to start his career at Eastland off on a note like that. Besides, he had said, what kind of trouble could they possibly get into?

Jo looks past the housemother and the headmaster to where she remembers seeing a clock earlier. The little hand, from where she stands near the door, appears to be sitting on the one. She grimaces. Part of her had been hoping—desperately _praying_ that they weren't as late as she figured they were judging by the lack of traffic.

"Blair! Jo! Have you any idea what time it is?" Mr. Bradley manages to look relieved and furious all at the same time.

Worry is the only emotion Mrs. Garrett is emitting. "Are you alright?! What happened to you? Blair…what happened to your dress? And your arms—they're bruised! And your _legs_! Oh my. And Jo, you've got scratches on your cheek!"

Finding her voice again, Blair whines, "Oh Mrs. Garrett, you would not believe the night I've had."

"Before she makes tonight sound worse than it was," Jo interrupts, tightening her grip on the motorcycle helmet hanging at her side, "let me just remind everyone that we are here and in one piece."

"Which is more than Jo can say for her hopper," Blair quips.

"Chopper, Blondie. Say it with me. Chopp-er."

The man's eyes grow wide with shock. "You were in a wreck?"

"Relax, Mr. B. My bike is a little banged up but the scrape Blair and I got into wasn't that bad. No other cars were involved, and I plan to make it look good as new the second I get the money."

Mrs. Garrett steps closer to the girls. In her composed, motherly voice, she tells the brunette, "We're not worried about your motorcycle, Jo. We're worried about you—both of you. How badly were you hurt? Do you need me to drive you to the emergency room?"

"I guess that depends on your definition of 'hurt.'" Blair glares at Jo pointedly, thinking back on the events of the night. Jo bitterly avoids eye contact.

Mr. Bradley asks, "Are there any colossal cuts? Torn tendons? Broken bones?"

Blair holds out her arms and turns them slowly like she is presenting them as the grand prize on some game show. "Well as you can see I have some hideous bruises and even more hideous helmet hair but thanks to Jo's jacket and helmet, I am comparatively okay."

"If you were wearing Jo's things then…" Mrs. Garrett pauses. Jo glares at her roommate. Thanks for blowing my cover, she wants to growl. "Jo, are you alright?" She reaches out to touch Jo's jacket sleeve-covered arm but Jo pulls away instinctively.

"It's nothing I can't handle. Just point me in the direction of a bottle of peroxide and I'll be good to go," Jo says in a sure tone with an empty laugh at the end. The housemother looks concerned so Jo sobers. "Really. I can take care of myself."

"Are… Are you sure? I'm a registered nurse."

"I'm sure."

There is only so much Mrs. Garrett can do for a girl she hardly knows. She doesn't have the blooming trust with this stranger that she has begun earning with the others.

"Alright," she nods, unconvinced. "The bathroom upstairs has some things you could use in the medicine cabinet. You know where to find me if you decide you need help after all."

Blair glances in Jo's direction, watches her for a few seconds. Jo is standing uncomfortably, arms drooped at her sides like motionless sticks, and Blair knows her injuries are to blame. Reality sets in and the blonde remembers that they _did_ break curfew. She also remembers that she is standing in the room with the people who can punish them for it.

"Well," the girl says, stretching dramatically the way they do in the movies and summoning a yawn. "We're beat. We'll be turning in now." Jo catches on and follows after Blair when she starts moving toward the stairway.

"Hold it." Mrs. Garrett crosses her arms as they turn to face her. "Blair, you and Jo are grounded. I expect you to come back here directly after class."

Blair lets out one of her infamously pathetic sighs that earns a look of repugnance from her roommate. "I figured. For how long?"

"A month. Two weeks for breaking curfew, and two weeks for not letting anyone know where you were and making me worry."

They nod.

"Oh, Mr. Bradley?"

Mr. Bradley clears his throat. "Yes, Jo?"

"My bike is lying out on the lawn. I'd go put it up but since I'm already so late on my curfew and since it's all the way on the other side of campus… Think you could put it in the garage for me?"

"Well I don't know if I—"

"He'll get right on it," Mrs. Garrett winks.

Jo smiles. The girls turn and silently head upstairs. The only sounds heard are made from their own feet. This late at night (or early in the morning depending on how you looked at it), surely no one would still be awake. Once they turn the corner, Jo stops, unzips her jacket, and carefully shakes it off of herself. She manages to only suck in a quiet _hsss_ rather than let out the string of profanity she's screaming in her head. Blair can't help but gawk at the reddened, open flesh. Jo has scrape marks and gashes up and down her forearms from rolling. This wasn't her first tango with street pavement. She's learned how to take a tumble, how to keep from hurting herself more than necessary assuming the conditions are controllable. When the wrecks are her own fault as they were in this situation, Jo knows what to do. The thick jacket and helmet would have been a big help but Jo couldn't, in good conscience, let Blair ride on her bike with no protection.

"Maybe you _should_let Mrs. Garrett help you," Blair recommends under her breath.

Jo is about to stubbornly decline when the click of a door knob distracts her.

"_Psst_," someone calls.

Jo and Blair both turn their attention to Sue Ann sticking her head out. She motions them over. Blair goes first; Jo follows after and stands a few feet behind her.

Sue Ann scans down the crimson glimmer of Jo's arms and finds herself gaping. "Jo, that looks awful. What happened to you two tonight?"

"Long story," Jo flatly tells her.

Sue Ann blinks at her before turning back to her friend. "You missed the crowning of the Harvest Queen, Blair. Your name had to be withdrawn from the competition when you were nowhere to be found."

"I'd rather not talk about this, Sue Ann." She doesn't mean to sound so irritated but knowing that she gave up her precious crown for the experience she got is not something Blair cares to relive.

"Well don't you at least want to know who won?"

"As long as it wasn't that freak, Peggie Lawson..."

"It was a clean sweep for Cindy." Sue Ann beams with pride. "You should have seen her. I don't think I've ever seen anyone look so stunning." She bites her bottom lip, fighting the smile as her eyes fall to the floor. She shakes head and looks back at the girls. "Well anyway, I'm sure you'll hear all about it. I'll talk to you guys tomorrow. I couldn't sleep until I knew everyone was home, but now that you are, I am exhausted." She waves her hand before disappearing back into her and Cindy's room and silently closes the door.

Blair turns around to look at Jo as if to say, _what was that about?_ The brunette shrugs and continues down the hallway. Her and Blair's room is the last door on the left. The bathroom is directly across from it. Jo goes right and Blair tells herself to turn left but she too goes right, standing in the doorway as Jo raids the cabinet for peroxide, any kind of medical wrap or bandages, and painkillers. Her arms are throbbing though she's not the kind of person to admit her agony. Polniaczeks are notoriously careful with their pride.

"You're sure you don't want Mrs. Garrett to help you?" Blair asks one more time. Maybe it's her sheltered upbringing talking, but she knows she would never be able to take care of herself if she were in Jo's shoes. Her mother would call for one of the housekeepers and have them tend to her. Then she and her mom would go shopping the way only Warner women can and possibly stop for frozen yogurt afterward if they were both feeling thin enough that day.

Jo doesn't look up as she unscrews the cap of a brown bottle. "I got it taken care of."

The liquid trickles out of the opening down to her oozing cuts over the sink. She hisses, tenses, and balls a fist in attempt to focus her pain elsewhere.

"Do you need—"

"Blair," Jo growls. "Leave me alone!"

The blonde juts her jaw and storms across the hall to their room. She wants to tell Jo that she was only trying to help but isn't sure she can without yelling and causing a scene. What kind of ungrateful jerk gets you into a wreck and then turns down your offer to help them?

* * *

Showered? Check. Teeth brushed? Hair brushed? Double check. Deodorant? Check. Dressed and ready for Parents Day? Check and check. Jo's mom works seven days a week so Jo has nothing to worry about or expect today. It will be a day to get to know the other girls' parents. She replaces the bandages over her deepest gashes, slips into a long-sleeve button-down flannel, and heads out of the room. She knows by all of the clatter and chatter downstairs that she was the last one to wake. She'd stayed up so long fishing tiny rocks out of her flesh that she slept past her alarm, but she wasn't worried that anyone would care or even notice.

Fastening the buttons to her shirt, Jo bounces down the stairs but pauses at the bottom when she hears Mrs. Garrett praising Blair for something she painted and Blair expressing how she hopes to be as good as her mother one day.

Jo tilts her head to the side, standing behind them, and squints. "What is it?"

Blair turns, sees who dare critique her art, and narrows her eyes. "Quasimodo."

"And you _meant_ to do that?" Jo pulls a _yikes! _face, showing her teeth and arching her eyebrows. "Well hey, look at it this way. You're not going to this prep school to become Picasso."

Blair pokes her tongue to the inside of her cheek the way she does when she is trying to hold herself back.

The other girls—particularly Nancy and Sue Ann—look to one another in question. The spitefulness yesterday was somewhat justified. Jo was new and things were flipped upside down. Today, the uncalled-for ruthlessness seems to have doubled.

"Um, guys?" the taller girl tries. They both turn to face her like starving tigers on the prowl. "Never mind."

Mr. Bradley and Ms. Mahoney come parading in the way they had yesterday; the woman is handing out Hello Badges so that everyone knows everyone else's name. Jo rolls her eyes, walks over to the table with the marker and messily scribbles her name before slapping it on her chest.

"Jo Pol-nee-ack-zek?"

Jo glares daggers down at Natalie. "Polniaczek. It's polish."

The younger girl cowers away slowly.

"What was that about?" Tootie whispers.

"We might want to take Polish instead of Spanish next year," Natalie answers warily.

Mr. Bradley claps his hands together. "Girls. _Women_. Your parents will be here in a few minutes so you need to get out of those clothes first." Collective looks of disgust make the headmaster reconsider his wording. "I don't mean get out of them down here. I mean go upstairs and get out of those clothes. Then come back down here. With your clothes on," he clarifies.

While the rest of the group hurries up to put on pretty dresses or fix their hair, Jo flops down on the couch and kicks her foot up to rest on her other knee. Mr. Bradley tilts his head, silently demanding an explanation.

Jo grins knowingly. "I don't own any fancy clothes."

He doesn't look pleased, and this on top of his extra task last night is sure to put Jo on Bradley's Most Wanted (In Detention) List.

A beautiful woman with blonde hair and familiar, sparkling eyes walks into the building holding a box. "My name is Monica Warner," she announces to Mr. Bradley. For the next few minutes, Jo observes as he tries and fails to flirt with who can only be Blair's mom.

The gang comes back down—in the same clothes they went up in, Jo notices—and Blair gives her mother a hug. Jo wonders if them not changing is a small indication that they often pull the wool over the administration's eyes. She hopes so. Mr. Bradley is beginning to get on her nerves, and she can already picture herself in trouble for doing something to spite him. Nothing too serious, of course. Nothing to cause a call home and worry Jo's mom. Jo just wants to ruffle his feathers a little bit.

Blair begins to introduce everyone, but when she gets to Jo, she simply skips her.

"Dear, you missed one." Blair purses her lips, eyeing her enemy sitting at the end of the couch. "Well?"

"Mother, this is Jo," she mutters.

Jo says hi and gives a small wave. Monica smiles politely.

The crowd breaks up when Mrs. Garrett insists they finish getting things prepared for the day. Jo stands and looks around for a job to do when she hears Sue Ann say, "Wow! What a figure!"

"Yeah," Cindy agrees. "Wouldn't you just love to have a pair of legs like that?"

Jo's eyebrow quirks. It goes without saying that she is surprised to hear the person who less than 24 hours ago confessed to being attracted to women openly admire one. _Gutsy move_. Jo respects gutsy people.

"I'd settle for just one," Natalie says before walking away.

Sue Ann ducks out of the room a moment later, mentioning that she promised to help Nancy hang another welcome banner.

Jo does a double-take in Cindy's direction and notices something that the other girls wouldn't have had they been in the same room with them at that very moment.

The tomboy, after coming back to reality, realizes she has been caught longingly watching Sue Ann go. Her cheeks heat up immediately. "What are you looking at?"

Jo shrugs. "I didn't see anything."

"You didn't."

"Right. That's what I said."

Cindy steps closer almost as if to show dominance.

"Hey," she starts. "It ain't my business."

"You can't say anything," the girl stresses in a hushed tone. "You do and your face will be minced meat."

Jo breathes heavily through her nose like a raging bull and dissolves the urge to punch Cindy's lights out right then and there for threatening her. Cindy doesn't strike her as a bad person; she comes off as a girl trying her best to get control over something she will never have control over. Given the circumstances, Jo lets it slide. This time.

"Like I said, I ain't gonna yap." Jo backs up, flattens out the imaginary wrinkles in her shirt so she can have something besides fierce eyes to look at, and clears her throat. "We should be doing something to help Mrs. Garrett."

* * *

Thirty-six. The ceiling in Jo and Blair's room is made up of thirty-six tiles. Eventually Jo stops recounting and starts staring blankly. Chatter from downstairs has been going strong since noon-three hours now. Chatter from Blair and Sue Ann about some dress has been filling up the room for longer than Jo wishes. Jo did her job. She met parents, pretended to be happy to see them even though most of them smelled funny, and maintained her cool the entire time. No one said she had to keep the happy-go-lucky act up all day so she bolted for solitude the moment she could. As usual, she didn't get what she wanted—what with the Jabberjaw Sisters in her company.

Jo wonders if it's a bad sign that two days in, she can't stop wishing she were anywhere else. She has no bike to get away and Nancy won't get off the phone. She wants to talk to someone about how mad she is at Blair for last night and how mad she is at herself for sulking over her situation in the first place. But more than anything, she wants to tell someone that she hates this place and she misses home even though home isn't that great either.

Jo's friend Gloria was always good for this kind of thing, for venting. Sometimes late at night, Jo would sneak over to Gloria's. They would go out to her garage, and the two would talk about all kinds of things over a shared flask. About parents, about whatever creep the other girl was currently dragging around, about someday getting out of the gang and away from the Bronx together. Talking about leaving the Young Diablos was enough to get you a knuckle sandwich, but it was something Gloria and Jo secretly bonded over. Jo covers her face with her hands and lets out a loud sigh. She could really use an Eastland Gloria right about now.

"Jo?" Jo tilts her head up just enough to see Sue Ann looking at her from the seat at the vanity. Blair is nowhere to be seen. "Do you mind if I ask you something?"

Jo wants to tell her to get lost—_if she's Blair's friend, how good of a friend can she be?_-but you don't bite the hand that feeds you.

"You just did," she says, sitting up. Sue Ann's frown pushes Jo to comply. "Go ahead."

"Did something happen between you and Blair last night? We all know you were in an accident but-"

"What did Blair tell you about it?"

"Not much. Most of what I know, I overheard while she was talking to Mrs. Garrett." She shrugs. "Didn't catch too many details but you must have really got under her skin for her to call you a cretin, a grease ball, a slob, _and_ a Neanderthal who wouldn't recognize The Next Monet if she slapped you in the face with a palette."

"She really cares about me insulting her painting that much? She seems like the kind of richie who _buys_ art to impress folks. You know who I'm talkin' about—those people who pay thousands for a black and white picture of lettuce."

"Blair can't be figured out in a day like a newspaper crossword," Sue Ann laughs. "You just got here. There's a lot more to her than you think." Jo reflects on the night before, when she heard a similar phrase come from Blair's mouth. "You can't look at her and think you know everything about her. Heck, I've been friends with her for years and she still surprises me."

Jo feels stupid when Sue Ann puts it that way, but most people Jo knows _are_ that predictable. What you see is what you get, and Jo has grown to accept that. She's supposed to believe that Little Miss Farrah is one of the few people on this planet with depth?

Jo slides off of her bed and walks over to her dresser. She picks up the keys to her motorcycle lying on the top and fidget with them in her hands. "It's just that… Well Blair… She's so infuriating, y'know? She's snotty and rude and just when you think she's gonna be nice—"

"Do you want to talk about last night?" Sue Ann offers, eager as ever for gossip. Her hands are resting on her knees in anticipation, and she looks like she is about to be told legendary stories of adventure. "It might help to get an outsider's opinion."

"You said it yourself; Blair is your friend. That doesn't sound very_ outsider _to me."

Sue Ann shakes her head. "Jo, Blair and I aren't the kind of friends that walk on eggshells in order to preserve each other's feelings. We make fun of each other all the time. Why, you should have heard what she said about my thunder thighsthe other day!" Sue Ann slaps her legs in at the memory. "I'm not afraid to tell her when she's wrong. In fact, I kinda enjoy it."

"Well in that case… It all started after she left with me during the Harvest Festival Dance."

…

"Why are we here?"

"What, you don't like it?" Jo releases the branch she pulled aside for Blair to get through.

The two are greeted by an open area of grass not quite large enough to be considered a field but open enough to stand out from the wooded area surrounding them. A few stray, broken tombstones lay to the right. To the left of where they stand is what remains of two benches, neither of which is usable. Glass from shattered bottles is sprinkled throughout the meadow like confetti.

"I've heard about it. My mother told me this is where the liberal hippies used to come when she went to Eastland. They would go out of their minds on drugs and break things. Eventually people stopped coming and no one took the liberty of repairing the broken property."

Blair is toying with her hands and looking around. Not in disgust, as Jo thought she might. In curiosity, maybe. Or awe. It's hard to tell. This calmer side to the blonde is uncharted territory to Jo.

"It's not so bad. Come on." Jo tugs on her elbow softly before treading carefully to the area she had deemed safe and glass-free when she came here before. The grass is still flattened from her previous visit.

After a minute of serious contemplation, a look on Blair's face that Jo definitely recognizes as disgust, and an exasperated sigh, Blair cautiously finds herself on the ground sitting next to her roommate.

Jo has her arms resting on her knees. Blair can't help but notice her content.

"I like it here. The broken furniture and beer bottles remind me of my friend Gloria's garage. That's where me and my buddies hang out back home."

"I didn't know you knew a member of the royal family. She's a duchess, you said?" Blair teases.

"Make all the jokes you want about me but don't start on my friends," Jo warns. "We might not have any money or nice clothes, but I bet my friends are more real than any of your friends. They don't turn their noses up because you wore last season's Jordache's."

"Oh and I suppose I'd be welcomed with open arms if you were to bring me to visit your hometown. You would introduce me to your group, we'd go have a grand time goofing off in an alleyway dealing drugs or whatever it is that you do in your free time, and by the end of the night, your friends would love me." She looks at the other girl doubtfully. "I didn't think so."

The pulse throbbing in Jo's closed fists makes her well aware of how her blood is boiling. "You know, it isn't easy for us. We are the way we are because people like you treat us like dirt."

"People like me," Blair repeats.

"Yeah."

"You don't even know me."

"I know people like you."

Blair crosses her arms. "That's bologna. You think you do, but you don't." She laughs incredulously. "You don't make observations about someone and then suddenly know their life story."

_Oh, that's rich_. _What a hypocrite!_

She's on her feet in an instant. Her first instinct is to flee. She takes only a couple of steps toward the opening they came in through before remembering that Blair is her passenger. She walks back and stares down at the blonde in fury. "What makes you think me and my friends deal drugs in alleys? Blair, you're every bit as guilty for judging me as I am you."

Blair stands too, finding she constantly needs to be at Jo's level figuratively _and literally_ as it turns out. She nods after a moment. "You're right. I apologize."

"Uh, yeah," Jo suddenly deflates, "I guess I'm sorry too."

Awkward tension fills the air. I need a drink, Jo nearly says aloud. She would tell Gloria that if they were at Gloria's right now. Gloria would snatch a bottle of her dad's booze and fill up their flask.

The flask.

Patting at her inner jacket pocket from the outside _on Blair's body_, Jo grins.

"Hey, pervert! What do you think you're doing?!"

Jo rolls her eyes, reaches in swiftly for she knows Blair is about to explode, and pulls out the silver container. Still half full. She unscrews the lid and gulps down an impressive amount.

"What are you drinking? And do you realize you just got to second base with me?" Blair demands to know.

Jo hums in delight, wiping her mouth with her sleeve. "Amaretto. Want some?"

"Are you crazy? You can't drink and drive!"

"I'm not a lightweight, Goody Two Shoes. I can hold my liquor just fine."

…

"Next thing I know, the girl is trying to grab it from my hand in the middle of a drink. I'm pulling on it 'cause she didn't want it and she didn't want me to have it either. She pulls harder—too hard, gets it on her fancy dress, and we start fighting. Again."

Jo is back to lying down and staring at the ceiling. It feels sort of Freud-like but in a comforting way.

Sue Ann's face is scrunched in confusion. "Wait a minute. You mean to tell me that Blair is mad at you because you spilled a little bit of liquor on her dress? What about the wreck?"

"I haven't gotten to that part yet. I guess you can say what I just told you was a preview."

"Okay, sorry I interrupted. Go on." Sue Ann gestures with her hands.

"So there we were…"

…

"You klutz! This is a Vivienne Westwood original. My mother bought it for me only a month ago. Do you have any idea what a dress like this cost?"

"Who cares?!"

Blair has a brooding side to her, Jo is coming to find out. A side that manipulates others into feeling sorry for her. Jo knows this because Blair gets this look in her eye after Jo shouts at her like she's being punished for something. That look irritates Jo because it _works_.

"I'm sorry. Here." Jo bunches up as much of her sleeve as she can into her palm and dabs at the wetness.

The blonde bats Jo's arm away. "Stop, stop. The damage has been done. Just take me home."

A moment later, they're back down Jo's marked trail where she rolls her motorcycle out from behind some shrubbery. Once they make it to the secluded road, Jo swings her leg over the bike and waits. Blair bunches her dress in an unflattering way, braces herself by leaning on Jo's shoulder, and eases on. They don't make it a mile before:

"Jo! Jo, help! My dress!"

"What?"

"My dress! It's—"

There is nothing that can be done. The following events happen inevitably. Jo reaches for the hem of the dress while doing her best to avoid the flailing limbs of her panicking passenger all while trying to remain on two wheels.

She isn't sure what the final straw is that triggers the wreck. Maybe it's the large tree branch in the middle of the road that she swears comes out of thin air or maybe the bike is just too off-balanced…what, with her leaning toward the kickstand. Did her drink of choice have anything to do with it? Or, as she likes to think, was it all Blair's fault?

Jo and Blair find themselves tumbling, scraping every stray rock and twig on the paved path along the way. The Kawasaki (thankfully) goes first, dragging to a stop fifteen feet away from where Jo finally stops rolling. The burn in her arms already making its presence known, Jo groans and does a quick body examination. Because she was able to protect her head with her arms, everything seems to be intact and nothing is concaved. She sits up and looks around, waits for everything to stop spinning.

"Blair?" The brunette spots the girl lying on her back with Jo's helmet and jacket still perfectly in place on the girl's body despite the new black skid marks. Jo crawls over to her. "Blair," she tries a little louder. When there isn't a response, Jo frantically but carefully removes her helmet to find the blonde looking a little dazed but considerably unharmed.

She lets out a cough and then a whimper. "I'm going to be black and blue for weeks."

Jo lets out an annoyed grunt and drops the helmet. "What were you tryin'a do, give me a heart attack? I thought you were dead."

"I might as well be," Blair complains. She sits up and unzips the jacket to exam her rapidly appearing bruises. "I won't be able to wear anything sleeveless until I'm old enough to retire." Jo rises to her feet and warily treads over to her poor beaten bike. In the background, she faintly hears, "And would you look at my legs! I can already hear my wardrobe crying. Jeans and long dresses with sleeves and …" Another whimper. "And sweaters. I should just move to Siberia."

"There's an idea. It was your bright idea to hop on my bike with a dress on. Who ever heard of something so stupid."

"Well if you hadn't made it look so adventurous…"

"If _I_ hadn't?" Jo echoes in disbelief. "_Me_?" Blair tilts her head, her body wordlessly saying, _well_ _obviously_. "Oh, so this is my fault. That's just great." The brunette kicks a stray rock and sends it traveling down the road.

"It certainly isn't my fault. You were the one pointing out that I had 'been there and done that' when it came to the Harvest Queen. You made me sound boring!"

"Since when do you care what I think?"

Blair blinks. "I don't."

"Well that's great 'cause I feel the same way."

"Okay then."

"Good."

"Fine."

By now, Jo's arms have surpassed the Hellish fire-like ache. They've gone mostly numb on the surface except for when they touch her sides. She slowly pulls her motorcycle to its wheels. She can still push it. They make their way home on foot.

"Then you won't mind," Jo starts as an afterthought, "if I say that you are the most pompous, arrogant spoiled brat that I've ever met."

"And it shouldn't bother you that I find you to be an utterly repulsive heathen," Blair answers.

…

"…and it went on like that the entire walk home."

"Wow."

"Yeah."

"So that's what happened to your arms…"

Jo's fingers graze over her arms in reflex. "I'm telling you, putting that jacket on and trying to fool Mrs. G was ten times more painful than the crash."

Sue Ann winces. "For what it's worth—and don't kill me for saying this—but it sounds to me like you were both to blame."

Jo's mouth twitches, her objection on the tip of her tongue when Tootie and Natalie come barging in with electrifying news. No, not news. _Gossip_. Gossip about Blair's mom making out with some man who has a wife.

"Don't you two have a wig to comb or nails to paint?"

The two ignore Jo's attempt to get rid of unwanted company by reenacting the conversation between Ms. Warner and Mr. Branch prior to kissing. They sound like actors on some kind of cheesy afternoon soap opera.

"You two ought to be ashamed of yourselves," Sue Ann barks and points her index finger at them the way a mother would. "You had no right to be eavesdropping or even to be there." _Way to go, Sue Ann_. Just when Jo thinks she might have found her Eastland Gloria, Sue Ann adds, "but as long as you were, what else did they say?!"

Jo, dumbfounded, gets up and walks right out completely unnoticed as they squeal about the whole thing. She doesn't need someone like that. She can't trust a person who goes and does what Sue Ann just did. Or Tootie and Natalie for that matter.

* * *

Plopping down between Molly and someone else's mother at a table in the back of the common room, Jo says, "Hey, Kid. What's new?"

"Who are you calling Kid? This is your wake-up call, Jo Polniaczek. We are women, and these are trying times when our role in this world is delicate, and what will become of us if we don't respect our gender? It's important to show men that we women are not inferior. Calling me Kid is a step in the wrong direction."

"I'll try to remember that," Jo says. "What'cha got there?" She taps on the book in Molly's hands.

"It's a book on body language."

"Body language?"

"Yeah! It's all about how we make moves with our body to tell people what we're thinking."

Jo laughs. "You don't really believe that stuff, do you? I mean, I could be thinking about wanting a cheese sandwich, and that book ain't gonna tell you that."

Molly giggles. "Do you want to see how it works? Let's study Cindy's body and see if…" She trails off as Sue Ann comes into the room and immediately over to her roommate on the couch.

After some time—maybe five minutes, maybe fifteen—Jo sighs impatiently. She doesn't know what she is supposed to be looking for but she's pretty sure body language studying is a load of hogwash. Not to mention that cheese sandwich is sounding more and more appetizing by the second.

"This stuff is interesting," Molly gushes as she flips through pages, thumbing the text, and dog-earing the corners as she goes. "The way Sue Ann holds onto Cindy's arm when they sit next to each other shows that she's extremely comfortable around Cindy and that she trusts her. My aunt Jackie does that to my uncle Henry sometimes. Did you know that Henry Ford could barely read or write? I could never repair watches for fun."

Jo stares at Molly. "You have to stop doing that."

"Doing what?"

"That run-on-sentence-and-getting-off-topic thing that you do. I might be smart but Einstein himself wouldn't have a clue what you're talking about."

"Sorry, sometimes my brain works faster than my mouth. You'll get used to it. Mom says that I have an active imagination and a thirst for knowledge which is perfectly healthy behavior for a woman my age. Besides, the percentage of misdiagnosed mental patients is enough to keep anybody away from a doctor's office."

"That's..._nice_," Jo appeases. Trying to understand Molly takes more energy than she has, and she thinks maybe pretending to understand the young girl—_woman_ might be easier than actually doing it.

"Wait! Did you see that?" Molly whispers.

"See what?"

Both girls are back to studying their classmates like a couple of spies in a James Bond movie. Their "subjects" had gotten up from the couch and are standing near the doorway talking.

"Cindy grabbed Sue Ann's hands and started swinging them, and now Sue Ann is redder than the garden roses!" She fingers back to a dog-eared page—a page on human courtship. "It says here that intimate touching is the final stage in courtship."

"Let me see that." Jo quickly takes the book from Molly. She reads precisely what Molly had just told her and tosses the book on the table in a huff. "So they're holding hands. So what?"

"So look how close they're standing! It's almost as if Cindy is trying to..." The red-headed girl rubs her chin in deep thought.

Her fellow spy is tired of this genius's studying abilities, and frankly her observations on Cindy are getting too close for comfort. "I-I don't think that's what the author means by intimate," Jo lies. "This book is probably only based on a few people some guy knew anyway. It doesn't prove a thing."

"_Actually_," Molly corrects, flipping her book over to the author's mini-biography on the back, "it says here that the author is a psychologist who graduated from-"

"Yeah, yeah," Jo dismisses. "I've had enough body language talk for one day. I'm starved. Let's go find something to eat. That cheese sandwich is calling my name."

* * *

It turns out Blair does have a lot going on that Jo doesn't know about, just like Sue Ann said. While Jo had spent her day avoiding everyone and faking smiles when she had to and keeping Molly far, far away from Cindy, Blair spent hers having a huge meltdown over her mom with the tension of last night's incident and this morning's argument far from her mind. Apparently that story about Ms. Warner kissing a married man was true, and Mrs. Garrett had to step in and save the day. Jo has decided that Mrs. G is pretty cool. She's a selfless woman not too different from Jo's own mother. Mrs. Garrett does what she can, and when Blair and her mother made up, Jo felt a pang of something. She made a mental note to call her mom before the day is over.

Five minutes before the New York Yankees play the Kansas City Royals, Jo gets a visitor knocking on her door.

She impatiently answers, hoping whatever it is can wait or be answered on the spot.

"Hey, Cindy," she greets hastily. Her hand is still resting on the doorknob.

Taking that as a good enough invitation, Cindy slips by her and into the room. Jo groans and closes the door.

"Jo, I'm sorry for threatening you. I shouldn't have said what I said. You know, about the minced meat."

"Hey, don't beat yourself up over it. I've heard worse…but you _are_ the first to say somethin' like that and live to see another day," she half-heartedly jokes.

"No, really," Cindy insists, pacing the floor. "I know you wouldn't tell. It's just… This is scary for me. I… I'm not a coward or a wussy but this isn't bottom-of-the-ninth-with-the-bases-loaded scary, and this isn't free-throw-in-overtime scary. This is something else. Maybe if I keep pretending, I can make it out of school without anyone else knowing. Maybe this—this stupid _crush_ will go away. Maybe I need to spend less time with her or get a new roommate or—"

"Would you relax? You're gonna wear a hole right through the floor."

Cindy stops moving and faces Jo with pleading eyes. "I don't know what to do."

"Here's the plan," Jo says, opening the door once more and guiding Cindy out before following. "You and I are gonna go downstairs watch the Yankees crush those lousy Royals."

Cindy leans in. "But what about my problem?"

Jo loops her arm around Cindy's shoulder and they begin to walk down the hallway. "First of all, stop calling it a problem. Second of all, you'll figure it out. _Later_. Right now, it's game time."


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's note:** I could make up an excuse for not updating in months but I won't. I am so sorry to keep you all waiting. This would have been up a lot sooner if I hadn't rewritten it entirely after I wrote it the first time or discovered and watched the first 7 seasons of Grey's Anatomy. And I didn't write as much as I wanted but here's something to tie everyone over.

* * *

The first one is always the hardest.

That's the saying, isn't it? Rose Polniaczek has said it to her daughter a hundred times over the course of Jo's relatively short life. Her first day of middle school. Her first Christmas without her dad. Her first day of probation. Her first kiss (which was toothy and awkward and quite literally a hard one). Her first fall from her motorcycle. Her first day of class at Eastland (because not even distance can stop Rose's worldly, repetitive life lessons). Jo has one opinion on the matter and that is that her mother is very, very wrong. Why? Because Jo's mother has never been grounded by Mrs. Garrett.

The first two weeks of Mrs. Garrett's one month sentencing were less than pleasant for everyone. With their freedom restricted to classrooms and their dorm area, the two roommates kissed what little tolerance they had for one another goodbye. Blair was bitter because she had to turn down multiple dates with blue bloods and other handsome Bates boys. Jo grew hostile with each coming day which resulted in her slamming doors, plates, spoons, pencils—everything she touched. The arguing was on a 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. schedule with a few cherished periodic moments of tranquility during the classes they didn't share. The rest of the girls lost their patience after the first week. Soon, Dorm A was entirely on edge and not even threats of discipline from Mr. Bradley could stop the bickering.

All of that is about to change.

"Girls, I'm calling a meeting. We need to have a serious talk."

It's Monday morning. The girls sitting at the tables slowly chewing on bagels or toast look over at their housemother. Mrs. Garrett stands in the middle of the dinning hall, looking at them all and fiddling with her hands.

"Now I think we can all agree that there has been a certain amount of…tension…in the house lately."

"I'll say," Sue Ann murmurs between bites.

Jo drops her toast on her plate and twists around in her chair to face the girl at the table behind her. "You got a problem?"

"Of course she has a problem," Blair answers, sitting in the seat next to Sue Ann. "You attack everybody."

"And you don't? Last night you accused me of stealing your favorite pen and threw a shoe at me when I told you I hadn't touched it. You're lucky I was tired or I might'a hit you, and not with a shoe."

"It's true," Molly coincides. "I heard Blair shouting in the next room."

"Pipe it, Molly."

Mrs. Garrett pinches the bridge of her nose. "You see, this is what I was talking about."

Molly stands up. "Mrs. Garrett, if I may…"

The housemother gestures for her to go ahead.

"I think Jo and Blair being so mad at each other all the time is messing up the entire house. Did you know that Natalie got sassy with me because Cindy insulted her, and Cindy was only mad because Nancy said something rude to her, and Nancy only did that because she was sore over Tootie calling her dumb, and that's as far as I've gotten but I'm sure it traces back to those two somehow."

Mrs. Garrett sighs. "Thank you, Molly." She looks around. The girls aforementioned are side-eyeing one another irritably. "Jo… Blair… What do you think about an adjustment to your punishment?"

That catches their attention. They both sit up a little straighter.

"You mean we're free?"

"We're not grounded anymore?"

"Mrs. Garrett, you can't un-ground them!"

"Yeah! You didn't un-ground me last month!"

"I get to go on dates again!"

"Hold it! Hooold it!" Mrs. Garrett gestures emphatically. "No one is getting un-grounded. I'm talking about giving you the liberty of leaving the campus on one condition: you have to be together. Blair, you want to go on a date? Take Jo with you. Find her a date." A cold glare from the brunette has the woman rethinking her wording. "Or-Or she can find her own date."

A few girls whisper and giggle at the idea.

Nancy's eyes bug out. "You might as well drop them in a shark pit and save whoever doesn't get eaten first."

"Nonsense," Mrs. Garrett chirps. "I have faith in you. What do you say?"

Jo's arms rest over her chest defiantly. "No way."

Blair looks over her roommate and then at the housemother. She laughs superciliously and shakes her head. "She's kidding. We'll take it."

"Nuh-uh. Blair, you can't—"

"_Jo_." Blair pushes out her chair so hastily that it screeches across the tiles, and she grabs onto Jo's arm. "We'll take the new punishment."

A steely look in her eye, Jo huffs at Blair and then nods at the woman.

"Wonderful." Ms. Garrett claps her hands together.

After a quick excusatory goodbye along the lines of, "we're going to be late if we don't get going," Blair drags Jo out.

Tootie being the filter-less preteen that she is can't help but ask, "Don't you know they're going to split up the second they leave?"

Mrs. Garrett smiles mischievously. "I know."

* * *

"Run the game plan by me one more time."

Blair wafts the blush brush over her cheeks lightly, eyes never leaving her own reflection. "Daniel and Robbie will be here in a few minutes to pick us up and take us to La Maison, hence the dresses."

Jo had to borrow some baby blue frilly mess from a girl she sat next to in her literature class. It took her three days to find one she didn't _completely_ hate. Luckily it was long enough that she didn't have to bother finding high heels and could wear her sneakers without anyone suspecting.

"Once we get there, Daniel and I will continue with our date. You and Robbie are free to go gallivanting around town or join us if you really want to though that would defeat the purpose of the plan. Just make sure to be back by eight-thirty. Eh, better make it nine. Daniel is the kind of guy you want to push curfew for if you know what I mean." Blair winks at Jo suggestively through the mirror.

Jo rolls her eyes and opens her mouth to speak when Natalie calls for them from downstairs.

"We'll be there at eight-thirty," Jo warns.

Standing at the bottom of the staircase are two well-dressed seniors charming the figurative pants off of Mrs. Garrett. Daniel goes on and on about how the woman resembles Old Hollywood actress Ginger Rogers.

"Mixed with the stunning Miss Bette Davis," Robbie contributes.

Mrs. Garrett denies their claims but blushes and gushes like a schoolgirl despite herself. Eventually she notices the two teens standing at the top of the staircase and sobers.

"Oh, girls! You look fabulous!"

Blair glides down elegantly as if she was born innately capable of looking and acting like a princess, and Jo follows behind her in a casual step.

"Wow, Blair." Daniel takes her hand. "You look… You are… Wow."

She giggles. "I know."

"Nice dress, Jo." Robbie beams. "You look really pretty."

Jo smiles at her friend. "Thanks. You look nice too."

The rest of the girls are uncommonly all home with little to do. They watch in silent awe until Natalie says, "Looks like you lost, Tootie. Pay up."

"I don't believe my eyes. She's in a dress. Jo is in a dress." Tootie shakes her head in disbelief, digs into her pocket, and slaps a one dollar bill into Natalie's palm.

"Can we get outta here?" Jo asks as everyone in the room stares at her.

"Yes, let's. Oh but first, my purse. Where did I leave it?" Blair scopes the room, trying to remember where she placed it earlier.

"Here it is," Tootie says, snatching it from the couch and handing it to her.

Blair hooks onto Daniel's arm as they head out.

Robbie and Jo look at one another and he gestures for her to go ahead, no arm charm required. The door closes behind them.

A mere second passes before Sue Ann, with a smirk firmly in place and her right arm resting on Nancy's left shoulder, asks, "So what's up your sleeve, Mrs. Garrett? Microphones hidden on their dresses so we can eavesdrop? I saw that in a movie once."

"Or are you gonna show up to the restaurant and ruin their date?" questions Cindy.

That same roguish smile creeps up on the housemother as before. "No hidden microphones. No trips to the restaurant." They all look at her in anticipation. "Who wants to have a little fun?"

* * *

The La Maison is a beautiful restaurant, the best in town. Marble tabletops, lights strung about the building to set the mood, delicious French cuisine with a price tag that sends most teenage Peekskill residents running in the other direction… Only people with a substantial amount of money eat there. Not that she always accepts the offer (because going to the same restaurant on all her dates would be tedious) but a boy offering to take Blair to La Maison is one way she knows that she can date him.

Daniel Robinson of the Manhattan Robinsons, who had had his eye on Blair for some time, phoned her after catching wind in the Bates Academy hallways that she was allowed to go on dates again and proposed they go. It wasn't difficult for Blair to talk Jo into going out. Jo was happy to play along if it meant she could have her freedom back.

The night is chilly and Jo chastises herself for not wearing a jacket. Blair made it a point while they were scavenging for Jo's attire to mention that true gentlemen share theirs. After everyone is out of Daniel's Rolls-Royce and he hands the keys over to the valet, they walk toward the door.

"This is it," Daniel says. "Will you two be joining us?" He hopes not. He only reserved a table for two. Blair was ambiguous when it came to the details of their additional company tonight. She had mentioned that "Jo wouldn't appreciate a fine establishment like La Maison" but never said in so many words that Jo was not in fact joining them.

Robbie looks at his friend—his date? Heck, he isn't sure where they stand. "Jo, I know this kind of place isn't your style. We can eat here if you want or there are a few joints on the next street over. Barney's Rib Shack and Heart Attack Zack's Buffet are pretty good."

Robbie came into money after his grandfather died during his sophomore year but before then he was only able to attend Bates Academy on a scholarship. He understands what it feels like to not fit in with the rich crowd.

Jo glances over at Blair who has now burrowed closer to Daniel and wrapped her arm around his again to find warmth. So much for that gentlemanly chivalry, Jo thinks. The brunette looks back to her friend and opens her hand. "Let's get outta here." Robbie looks down at it and then back at her face to make sure it's okay. They wave bye to their friends before walking down the street hand in hand.

Blair follows them with her eyes. "Be back on time!" she shouts over the wind and car horns.

* * *

"_F6KYP to W2JIO. F6KYP to W2JIO. If you can hear me, please respond."_

"Blair, I think your handbag is talking."

"_F6KYP to W2JIO. F6KYP to W2JIO. If you can hear me, please respond."_

"That sounded like Molly." Blair pulls out a ham radio inquiringly. "What... What was this doing in there?" _Molly_, she internally curses. She holds it up and inspects it from all angles. "How do you work this darn thing? Oh here we go. Hello?"

"_Blair? Is that you? Oh Blair, you found my ham radio!"_

"Yes I did. What is it doing in my purse?" she demands to know.

"_Beats me. Boy, am I glad you have it. I had to borrow a radio from my friend Shirley's sister's boyfriend's little brother, and you wouldn't believe how hard it was getting a hold of him, and I can't remember the last place I saw mine, but now you can bring it home and I won't have to worry my father over it. Isn't that great?"_

Daniel tilts and glances at his wristwatch meaningfully before stabbing at his Caesar salad. Blair notices.

"Uh, sure. Listen, Molly. I'm on a date in case you forgot so if you don't mind, I'd like to get back to it."

"_Oh that's right. Sorry. I'm going to let you go now."_

Blair folds the flap to the radio case and stuffs it back into her handbag.

"Sorry about that." She smiles sheepishly. "Kids."

Daniel tosses his perfectly quaffed blonde hair and continues the story about a big football game he had been talking about before being interrupted.

Ten minutes later, Blair's purse is putting out muffled sounds once again. For a full thirty seconds—Blair knows how long because she keeps looking at the clock on the wall behind Daniel's head—she ignores the noise and hopes it will stop.

Finally Daniel drops his fork to his plate. "Maybe you should answer her."

Blair nods apologetically and fishes the radio out. "What is it, Molly? I'm busy."

"_About time you answered."_

"Cindy? I am on a date. What could you possibly have to say that couldn't wait until I got home tonight?"

"_I need to talk to Jo. Can you put her on for me?"_

Blair's face pales. The likelihood that Cindy would flat-out tell on her wasn't great but blackmail was a popular method of revenge in their dorm.

"Jo? She, uh, she left. Went to the bathroom."

"_That's okay, I can wait."_

Blair laughs incredulously. "I know you don't go on many dates but asking me to stay on the line until she finishes only highlights your terrible manners. I simply won't do it. _Goodbye_."

"Maybe we should cut the date short," Daniel suggests.

"No, no!" Blair protests, reaching for his hand across the table and giving it a squeeze. "I'm having a nice time, aren't you?"

He smiles a thin-lipped smile at her. "Your friends seem to need you."

The waiter neither of them had noticed scoops up their empty appetizer dishes and places the main course in front of them. After the confirmation that the food has their approval, he disappears

"They can wait. Besides," Blair picks up the proper fork, "your coq au vin rouge and my bourride de fruits de mer look to die for. I would like to enjoy what's left of our evening."

Ten more minutes of peace is all the couple get before their next interruption. Daniel and Blair share a look and Blair suddenly has the suspicion that he is growing tiresome of this whole charade. A vein in his temple is poking out the same way her father's does when she maxes out a credit card without his permission. Daniel just lacks the experience of dealing with those cretins on a daily basis, she tells herself. Blair finishes chewing and swallows before tossing her purse back into her lap and grabbing the radio out.

"Blair Warner speaking. If someone isn't dying, you will be when I get home. Talk."

"_Blair, hi, it's Nancy. You know, your good friend, Nancy. Nancy, who you couldn't possibly kill. Right?"_ Nervous laughter follows.

"Think again," Blair says but with so little venom that not even Blair herself believes it. Nancy's right. They don't have that kind of relationship. It's one of Blair's few mature friendships without violence or screaming. "What do you want?"

"_I… I don't know how to say this."_

"Say what?"

"_Jo stormed through the front door five minutes ago. Said something about her date trying to put the moves on her. I would have happily accepted "the moves" if I were her—Have you _seen_ Robbie Henderson?—but this is Jo we're talking about. She walked all the way home! Do you believe that? When Mrs. Garrett asked her where you were, she told us everything."_

"Everything?"

"_Everything_."

"She didn't!"

"_She did. What are you going to do?"_

Blair's face is flushing with anger. "I'm going to kick that grease monkey all the way from Eastland to China, that's what! We had a deal, Nancy. She was supposed to go on her date and I was supposed to go on mine. She should have come back to La Maison if that no-good perv came onto her. What am I going to do? Is Mrs. Garrett furious?"

"_Very," _says a low, calm voice that isn't Nancy's. Mrs. Garrett! Blair gulps audibly_. "I will see you and Jo at home, Blair_. _You should probably mention when you see her that I will be adding two more weeks onto your punishment_."

* * *

**Author's Note #2:** Just to clarify so I won't have to in the next chapter, Mrs. Garrett wasn't trying to be, like, evil or anything. She has kooky teaching methods as we all know and this was her way of saying, "Don't try to pull a fast one on me. Follow the rules. Lying will only make things worse. Etc, etc" as well as teaching them that they'll have to accept their differences and work together to get what they want. On an unrelated note, I need to point out that I don't know much about amateur radios but Molly appeared to have used hers for recreational use on the show so I assume that if Mrs. Garrett were to, say, borrow another one and slip Molly's into Blair's purse, they could converse through them. If that's not how it works, let's pretend it is for the sake of this chapter.


	4. Chapter 4

Finding comfortable middle ground between Jo and Blair on their punishment isn't easy. They fight over where to go. They fight over what to see. They fight over what classifies as acceptable outings and acceptable times to go on those outings. Jo never wants to do anything too fancy and Blair refuses to be associated with the people in Jo's low-key places. It takes them another week to work out a functioning schedule and a list of appropriate places to visit. Their conversations regarding the subject typically consist of, "If we go there for you, then we're going here for me." The shouting doesn't lessen much from the previous arrangement but the hostility is aimed in a productive direction and Mrs. Garrett has to pat herself on the back for teaching them how behave like civilized individuals. With the hard part behind them, normalcy returns.

Just in time for a wrench to be thrown into the mix. A silvery-haired, suit-wearing, card-playing wrench.

* * *

"Three o'clock. Shift's over, Polniaczek. Looks clean enough to eat off the floor in here."

"Trust me, it is."

"Keep it up and you'll be a busboy slash food server in no time."

Jo tugs the cleaning apron over her head and rolls her eyes discretely, imagining the jokes yet to be thrown her way for having a title that ends in '-boy' or for serving her classmates their lunches. "Yeah, yeah. See ya tomorrow."

Howard isn't a guy Jo is particularly keen to work for. He can be vexingly chauvinistic at times. On Jo's first day he told her that a woman's place is in the kitchen. Unbeknownst to him, that remark resulted in a mysteriously flat tire that he would have to stay after work and change on his own time. Not slashed. Jo knew where to draw the line. She's through with damaging property. However, Jo found it hard to believe that her mother or her Uncle Sal who taught her a few things at the auto repair shop would fault her for using her tire pressure gauge to deflate the tire of a Pig during her five minute bathroom break. If anything they would be impressed that she did it without getting caught. She laughed to herself while doing just that, thinking back to when she received criticism from her roommate for carrying around 'useless junk' like the gauge in her jacket pocket and a roll of duct tape hanging on a string slipped through her belt loop.

Over all, working has its perks. In the short walk from the cafeteria to the dorm, Jo cherishes being free of responsibility, Howard, and most importantly Blair. Mrs. Garrett was pleased that Jo had gotten a job and gladly granted her the additional time away from Blair. In turn, the blonde has no choice but to come straight back to the dorm when Jo heads to the cafeteria after school. Best of all, it'll be no time before she's back on her bike. The pros outweigh the cons.

* * *

Jo hasn't been here long. A few months. She doesn't know what stores in Peekskill have the best deals. She isn't sure which of her well-off classmates think less of her for being a scholarship student. The general blueprint of the campus is still one huge question mark to her. Last week when the restroom she typically uses after geometry was closed due to renovations, she ended up climbing two flights of stairs before finding another one. In short, Jo is still getting the hang of things. One thing she is certain of is that Mercury Bobcat station wagons with fuzzy dice hanging from the rear-view mirror don't normally park in front of her dorm building.

Curiosity peeked, Jo quickens her pace and jogs to the door. She isn't expecting company and the other girls hadn't spoken of anyone. Could be a daytime burglar for all she knows. The view Jo gets on the other side of the door is not what she expects. A sharp-dressed stranger holds Mrs. Garrett in his arms, kissing her in that awkward and uncomfortable-looking way much like when Clark Gable kissed Vivien Leigh in Gone with the Wind. It takes Jo a moment to stop gawking and close the door.

"What are you doing?" the older woman asks when he lets go.

"Looks like he was trying find your tonsils to me." Jo turns to the girls who are shamelessly watching from the couch. "Who is he?"

"Mrs. Garrett's ex-husband," Tootie gushes.

"Ex," Mrs. Garrett echoes in deep thought as if it only now crossed her mind. "My ex-husband."

She hurries toward her bedroom but he follows after her, begging for conversation, for more time with her. Another big, stolen smooch between former lovers puts goofy grins on the spectators' faces. The adults exit the room together.

Nancy turns the others, eyes wide. "Can you believe it? Our Mrs. Garrett must have had some wild past."

"Yeah," Sue Ann says with suggestively bouncing eyebrows, "and her immediate future doesn't look too shabby either."

"What's Mrs. G's guy doin' here anyway?" Jo asks.

Molly shrugs. "Nobody knows."

"I think it's romantic," Cindy comments. "He shows up here after who-knows-how-long and kisses her like that. He must still love her."

"The question is," Molly says, "'does she still love him?'"

* * *

It takes time, interrogation, and puppy dog eyes on Tootie's part but Mrs. Garrett ultimately caves on the story of her ex-husband, Robert, showing up. He couldn't live without her any longer and, after tracking her down, finally came back to apologize for what happened all those years ago. That part, she explicitly left the finer details out of. Fifteen years, it took him to come to the conclusion that he needed her again. That's the part that makes Mrs. Garrett nervous, but she is deciding to roll with the punches and see where it takes her.

"They've been gone for three hours. Don't you think they should've been back by now?" Nancy asks before moving away from the window and plopping down on the couch.

"He took her to lunch at La Maison. That's the fanciest restaurant in town," Molly says matter-of-factly.

Jo and Blair share a look before flatly replying, "_We know_," in unison.

"He took her to a place like that; he must have something up his sleeve."

Tootie shakes her head. "It better be money 'cause that place costs a fortune."

"_We know_."

"They've been divorced for fifteen years now. Why do you think Mr. Garrett came back?" Sue Ann asks.

"Maybe he forgot his laundry," Natalie suggests earnestly.

"Did you see the way that they looked at each other on the way out?"

"I didn't notice anything special."

"Are you kidding? They looked to me like they got the hots for each other." Tootie wiggles in her seat on the floor for emphasis.

Sue Ann cocks her head. "At their age?"

"Maybe they got the lukewarms for each other."

"Do you know what _I_ think?"

"That none of this is our business?" Jo offers sardonically with as much energy in her voice as Nancy had just asked with. Jo didn't mean to turn on Nancy. They'd made it this far without a mean word spoken between them. But darn it, Blair has been so quiet lately, like she's somewhere else entirely. She isn't talking enough to take the brunt of Jo's offhanded rude remarks and Nancy is nearly as annoying.

Nancy's smile flat-lines. She scowls at Jo for a long moment before returning to her previously exuberant state. "I bet he came back to ask her to marry him again."

"If you ask me, I think that they should just live together." Count on Molly to be the liberal thinker of the group in every discussion.

"Without being married?" Tootie sounds scandalized. "She wouldn't do that. It's not right for people to just live together."

"Why not? We do."

Nancy's eyes bulge at the sound of a man's voice nearby. "It's them!"

"Come on, let's get out of here and give them a little privacy."

Everyone scatters in different directions, disappearing through halls and into random rooms. Jo opts to take the stairs two at a time behind Sue Ann and Cindy. Because Cindy is her friend and because she isn't exclusively opposed to being around Sue Ann, Jo follows them into their room. A Blondie record can be heard playing down the hall after a moment which can only mean one thing: Blair must have followed them up but would rather be alone than be around Cindy and herself. She's probably studying or doing homework, Jo figures and tries not to take it too personally. She would have done the same thing if it had been Blair in her place.

Cindy falls to her bed with an _oomph_ and Sue Ann falls next to her. They lie there, looking up at the ceiling with their legs hanging over the edge at the knees. Jo pulls out the chair at their vanity table and sits on it backwards with her chin resting on the back.

"What do you think it's like?" Cindy wonders. "Reuniting with someone you love after fifteen years."

Jo almost groans. She begins to think that Blondie and Blondie would make better company than two girls talking about someone else's love life.

"Must be hard. Mrs. Garrett doesn't look torn up inside when Mr. Garrett is around but I would be. You don't get divorced unless you got a good reason."

If you can't beat 'em, join 'em. Jo heaves a sigh and pops her neck. "Maybe he cheated," she offers.

Sue Ann and Cindy shift on their elbows to look at Jo. Sue Ann's face contorts slightly. "You really think he'd do that to her?"

Jo just shrugs. She doesn't think so, but how the heck should she know? They barely spoke to the man.

"There must be another reason," Cindy says. She waits until Sue Ann is looking her in the eye. "You don't hurt the people you love."

For some reason—for a reason Jo is about ninety-nine percent sure of—it takes them a good ten seconds or better to break eye contact and remember they aren't the only people in the room.

Sue Ann stands up, ears beet red, and walks over to her own side of the room with the idea that now is as good of a time as ever to tidy up her pigsty. A few stray sneakers get tossed into a chest at the foot of her bed. A dozen dirty outfits are hauled to the hamper by the door.

"Well let's hope for Mrs. Garrett's sake that whatever happened between them is in the past," she says after a long silence. "Everyone deserves to be with someone who makes them happy." Then she picks up a striped tube sock from under her bed and wipes off her dusty headboard with it, now too preoccupied with cleaning and too lost in her head to chance a glance at Cindy or Jo.

* * *

There are a strict set of rules that one must agree to when becoming a student at Eastland School for Girls. They are there, clear as day, black and white, printed in the handbook. One of them not unlike the others states that misconduct inside or outside of the classroom while on school grounds is prohibited and will result in punishment. Jo is no fool. Broad guidelines like that can cover whatever the administration wants it to cover. Anything from chewing gum in class to picking a fight. It's all fair game. That's why, when one evening when Mrs. Garrett is out with Mr. Garrett and Tootie gathers everyone in her room to announce that she's going to teach them how to play poker for "cold, hard cash," Jo is the first to turn down her offer.

"Are you _nuts_? What if somebody finds out?"

"Don't be such a chicken."

"Hey, I'm not scared."

"Prove it. Get over here and let me teach you how to play," Tootie barks with a new-found dominance—cockiness, more like.

Jo has another refusal on the tip of her tongue if only she could get it out. A perfectly good reason to say no. She has an _explanation_. Jo knows how to play the game and she hates it. But the words won't come.

Suddenly Sue Ann speaks up. "Jo's right. If any of you get in trouble for playing, you'll have no one to blame but yourself. Count me out." Sue Ann thumbs her chest and walks to the doorway.

Blair adds that she won't be joining in either but only because as a Warner she doesn't need the money and sees no other reason to participate in such foolish antics. She and Sue Ann exit the room without another word. Jo watches them go but doesn't follow. She stays and watches the girls flounder with the rules over and over as Tootie cleans them of their pocket change.

Days pass without a peep of Tootie's underground gambling sessions reaching Mr. Bradley or Mrs. Garrett. The time comes when the girls realize money is much more transient than previously thought. Lunch money and allowances stop covering poker expenses—that is, for everyone but Tootie who sweeps the others clean in every game. They get crafty, lying to Mr. Bradley about needing money for other things: birthdays, school supplies, sports gear. Jo shows up sometimes when she's bored and can't get Blair to leave the house with her. She sees the appeal and she's confident that she could crush any of them in a game, if she wanted to. She doesn't. And she considers on more than one occasion offering helpful tips to play the game with success. But she doesn't.

"Okay. I'll see your bet and raise you fifty cents." Tootie drops the chips into the pile one at a time for the _clank_ sound. "Come on, Nancy. What are you gonna do?"

"I don't know."

"Oh, here." Cindy reaches for Nancy's hand and scans the cards. "Hmm. Three queens. You should go out."

"So what are you gonna do, Natalie?"

Natalie scans her hand. "Oh. I have two fours. I see your raise and up it a quarter."

Jo looks up at Mr. Garrett, who shows up to most poker games and claims to mentor the girls though he doesn't do it very well. He neglectfully flips the page on the magazine in his hands.

"Natalie, _what_ are you raising for?" Tootie is about to blow a gasket. "Two fours does not beat queens."

Natalie rolls her eyes. "I know that and you know that but how do we know that _she_ knows that?"

Nancy blinks.

Jo looks up at Mr. Garrett again. "Ain't you gonna tell them what they're doin' wrong?"

He smiles and closes the magazine. "Oh, come on, Jo. They're having fun."

Jo can't stand another minute of whatever it is that they're doing. It isn't playing poker, that's for sure. A chimpanzee could beat everyone but Tootie with one pair. Truthfully, if anyone were to ask Jo why she had been watching them gamble day after day, she wouldn't have an answer. Even as an observer, the game hauntingly drew her in like the sick, seductive voices of Sirens.

That's it, though. She's done.

* * *

Mrs. Garrett is humming with glee. Literally. Sue Ann and Blair can hear her in the next room, singing an old-time love song under her breath. They share a look before shooting up from the couch and in through the open door to her room. She's twirling around a chestnut-colored dress, marveling at her reflection.

"You're glad Robert showed up, aren't you, Mrs. Garrett?"

"Oh I'm having one heck of a time! I was about your age when I first met him. Fresh off the farm, and he was a smooth city slicker. _Gorgeous_. Swept me right off my feet." Mrs. Garrett dances all the way to her makeup table and takes a seat.

"How romantic. But…why'd you break up?" Sue Ann prods in that childlike meddlesome way of hers.

"Well, dear, one day the bubble burst. I came home and all the furniture was gone. He had to sell it to pay off his gambling debts."

Blair grimaces. "How tacky!

"Couldn't you tell he was a gambler?"

Mrs. Garrett looks at Sue Ann, a bittersweet expression on her face. "How's a gambler supposed to look, hm? Besides, I was eighteen and madly in love. Girls, you have no idea what it is to be married to a gambler who cannot quit."

"Mrs. Garrett you should've dumped him. A guy like that is bad news," Blair says.

"Sometimes it ain't that easy." Jo pushes off from the doorway she'd been leaning against and stands next to Blair. "Sometimes he's married to your ma and he tells you on Christmas morning that he's sorry he couldn't afford the board game that you wanted but that your paper doll will be just as fun. And you think, _probably not, Pops, but thanks anyway_."

The three of them look at Jo with pity. She didn't share this with them to earn their pity. She hates pity.

"I'm sayin' that it ain't easy to get rid of someone. Sometimes you stay with them 'cause they need you."

They continue to look at Jo. Whether it's out of shock or because they're waiting for her to continue, she doesn't know.

She shoves her hands in her pockets and shrugs. "But sometimes you'd be better off cutting the ties before they suck ya dry of everything and then leave ya with a debt the size of Alaska. Think about it, Mrs. G. He might love you and—and you might love him too, but maybe what you need isn't what he needs."

Sue Ann shakes her head. "You gotta work through the tough times. That's what my mom told me, and she has a happy marriage."

Blair scoffs. "Big deal. My mom knows much more about happy marriages. She's had three of them."

"I know I'm an incurable romantic—"

"Well I hope you're not contagious," Blair interrupts.

Jo crosses her arms. "Even an incurable romantic should have common sense."

Blair gazes at Jo and it dawns on her that they are agreeing on something. She turns back to the self-proclaimed victim of Cupid. "Look, Sue Ann. Marriage is enough of a gamble without starting off with the deck stacked against you."

"If you're planning a trip, you don't get off the bus because of one little flat tire."

"Sure, ya do," Jo argues, knowing all too well about flat tires. "You keep drivin' on a flat tire and you'll warp the rim."

"How could you reason with someone who would take a trip on a bus?" Blair grins at Jo. A strange, fluttery feeling of excitement bubbles in her stomach when Jo grins back. They are on the same side for once and it feels _good_.

"Okay," Sue Ann tries again. "Let's say your Mercedes has a flat tire. What do you do? Junk it?"

Blair flips her hair coolly and gently places a hand on Jo's shoulder. "No, I have my personal mechanic fix it for me."

Jo lets out a gruff laugh and shakes her head. That makes Blair's stomach flip. Maybe it's naïve of the blonde to get excited over something so trivial but she wants to milk this pleasant moment with her normally very bitter roommate for all its worth.

"Look Sue Ann, we're talking about Mrs. Garrett's future happiness."

Sue Ann nods as if to say, _I know, Blair. You're stating the obvious_.

Jo looks at the woman in question, tilting her head and silently wondering if it drives her crazy to have a couple of kids debating over her life choices. Mrs. Garrett's mouth quirks into a crooked smile while slightly wobbling her head in amusement.

"We can't send her out in an old clunker like that."

"Mr. Garrett is not a clunker," Sue Ann defends. She lowers herself to the housemother's level. "What are you going to do now, Mrs. Garrett?"

Mrs. Garrett's eyes fall to the table in front of her. "I don't know. He says he's changed. Oh, my head says, 'forget it,' but my heart says, 'who knows?' I gotta admit, I'm tempted."

"Go with your heart, Mrs. Garrett! Take a ride with him."

"Take my advice, Mrs. Garrett," Blair counters as Sue Ann hooks onto Blair's arm and begins to tug her out of the room. "Wait for a cab."

Jo takes a few steps back, following the direction of her dorm mates, repeating, "Take Blair's advice, Mrs. Garrett. Wait for a cab." She throws her hands up and adds as an afterthought, "Or buy your own car."

* * *

When Ms. Mahoney and Mr. Bradley, chattering about men being in girls' dormitories, walk past Sue Ann's open door and down the stairs, Sue Ann, Blair, and Jo suspect something isn't right. When Mr. Garrett walks past not even five minutes later, they have no doubt. Without a word, they walk over to Tootie and Natalie's room.

"Mrs. Garrett, did you kick him out?" Blair cautiously inquires.

"She couldn't. She loves him."

"Maybe she loves him _and_ she kicked him out," Jo retorts, a hint of irritation laced in her voice.

This whole experience has struck to too closely to Jo, like a bolt of lightning. Sue Ann's destructive view of what people should put themselves through for the ones they love is exactly why Jo resents the father she once saw as heroic. He put his addiction before his family, draining their finances and making halfhearted apologies along the way, yet he went unpunished because Rose shared the same attitude as Sue Ann and loved Charlie enough to forgive him time and time again. Had Jo's mother given him a tough love ultimatum early on before things got out of hand, before he skipped out on them, maybe they wouldn't be suffering like they are now.

"Exactly right, Jo."

* * *

**Author's Note:** If memory serves, Charlie never had a gambling problem. Forgive me for straying from canon. Ah hell, this is a femslash fic. Canon is the enemy anyway.


	5. Chapter 5

Jo, Jo, Jo. Jo this and Jo that. Cool jacket, Jo. Excellent job on that paper, Jo. Pick you up at seven for our date, Jo. Could you help me with that English assignment, Jo? Honestly, Blair is sick of it all. It took long enough but Jo Polniaczek appears to be slowly gaining the approval of her peers—and in the most unintentional of ways which only fuels Blair's annoyance. In the process of being the unlikable, unsociable, all around unpleasant weirdo that she is, Jo has somehow attracted friends with her confidence, and suddenly Jo is _everything_. Jo is stylish and edgy. (No she isn't.) Jo is acing every test thrown her way. (Surely she's cheating. Maybe. Probably. She has to be. Those Bronx slicksters have to have a few tricks up their sleeves.) Jo is scoring dates on nights when Blair is stuck at home watching Three's Company with Molly, Tootie, and Natalie. (Dates! Multiple dates with one boy! Robbie Something-or-other. Are they going steady? Jo never shares a word of these outings so naturally Blair wonders.) Jo is the new Smart Girl. (Amusing as it is watching Sue Ann switch into competitive overdrive, Blair needs it to stop. It _all_ needs to stop. If something doesn't stop Jo from wowing everyone, Blair fears a Jan Brady meltdown could be in her future.)

"All yours," Jo says, toweling her hair as she steps out of the bathroom.

Blair snaps out of her thoughts and watches steam flow from the doorway. She groans and shouts at the back of her retreating roommate, "If I wasn't in such a hurry, I'd… I'd do something about it!" She slams the bathroom door behind her and hurries to strip herself of her pajamas. Blair forgot to set her alarm the night before, and Jo didn't have the decency in her to wake her. She has fifteen minutes to shower, get dressed, blow-dry her hair, do something fashionable with it, and apply "her face" as Jo words it. The nerve of that girl!

But the terror doesn't end there, oh no. As if a bad hair day wasn't bad enough, Blair and Jo share three classes together. English, Health, and Physical Education. That's three opportunities for Blair's day to worsen on account of the brunette. And well, Jo does tend to leave behind a trail of burning rubber and a cloud of smoke in her wake. In gym class, she is the only girl to climb the rope all the way to the top. Blair, infamously also known as The Girl Who Cried Cramps on days when the girls participate in "boy activities," feigned illness and stood off to the side watching Jo earn her A. In English, Jo gives their teacher an insightful and thought-provoking answer to a question about the themes of _Lord of the Flies_ that Blair herself hadn't known the answer to. In Health… Okay, so she doesn't do anything particularly outstanding in health class but her presence alone is a nuisance. _Maybe_, Blair ponders, _if I could just send that _problem_ packing then all of her problems would be solved._

* * *

"I have a secret that none of us are supposed to know." Tootie is grinning like the Cheshire Cat when she comes rolling into the bedroom, eyes glinting with mischief.

Exam time is here once again and the girls of Dorm A are cramming together, asking one another for help as they usually do—with knowledge (What do you know about the Louisiana Purchase?") _and_ with food ("Pass the avocado spread, would you?"). The room is more cramped than what most people would consider comfortable and the chatter can be distracting but according to Sue Ann, their study group is a rarity. Almost all of their peers work on assignments alone, write papers alone, and study alone without ever asking for help. Just like Jo used to before she moved, before she found other people who had real goals. They might get on her nerves and she would never admit it but Jo has recently become grateful to be a part of the tight-knit friendship. Her grades wouldn't be suffering without them but it turns out that she kind of likes being a part of a team. She likes feeling needed even if it's only to answer, "Thomas Jefferson was elected in 1801," or to hand Molly the carrots. Tootie's interruption puts a halt to the studying though. They all turn their attention away from their books and onto her.

"What is it, Tootie?" Cindy asks.

"I know who the smartest girl in the school is."

"Wait a minute. That's no secret," Nancy says. "Everyone knows it's either Sue Ann or Jo."

Jo's academic success came as a surprise to most Eastland students. They expected her to be average at best and assumed that she lucked her way into a scholarship when they discovered she was from the slums of New York. Jo isn't the type to flaunt either, so when teachers ask questions, she might answer one and then won't speak again for the rest of class. _No one wants to be _that_ kid_, she tells herself. One day she emptied her backpack and casually threw away her papers and quizzes en masse from the past two months with "100%" and "A+" and "Excellent!" written in red ink at the top of them. Tootie noticed. Tootie always notices. Word got around not long after. Nancy was happy to hear she had another person to get help from. Sue Ann, spirited as ever, was spurred to try harder so she could keep her title as The Smartest Girl in School. All in good sport, of course. She loves competing. The other girls in school were equally pleased to have another brain to bounce questions off of. And Blair? Adjusting to the many levels and layers of Jo was a never-ending experience for Blair.

Sue Ann shrugs modestly. "Oh well not necessarily Nancy."

"Sue Ann's right. It's neither of them," Tootie answers flatly.

The confidence and color drain from Sue Ann's face. "See? Didn't I tell you?"

Jo looks at Sue Ann solemnly, unsure of what to say. Being the smartest was never on Jo's wish list but it obviously matters a lot to the blonde.

"Well it couldn't be me," Blair muses as she fluffs her hair and tosses it slightly. "I've got too many other things going for me."

"You're right, Blair," Tootie jests. "It's not you either."

"Oh."

"It's Nancy!"

Nancy whines, "No, I'm not the smartest!"

"Don't be so stupid, I just told you so."

Molly looks at the girl doubtfully. "How do _you_ know all this?"

"I found a confidential list with all of our IQs on it. I wrote 'em down."

That, she had. Mr. Bradley flagged them around so proudly downstairs only moments before that it was too sweet of a temptation for the young girl to resist sharing.

The others cry out a round of _Ooh let me see!_ and reach for the list.

"Not. So. Fast." She fights to keep the paper out of view and straightens her clothes once they back off. "Sheesh! I'll show you your scores one at a time."

"That's not fair! Why should you know all our scores and not us?"

"'Cause _I_ can keep a secret!" Tootie declares, unaware of the irony.

One by one, Tootie calls them forward and carefully points out their score. First is Cindy, followed by Molly and Nancy. "And Natalie," she says, turning to her best friend. "You and me have the same IQ score."

"I knew we were soul sisters!"

They perform their exclusive best friends handshake-wiggle.

"Hey Blair, you wanna see your IQ?" Cindy pries, paper now in hand. Without waiting for an answer, she holds the sheet in front of the girl.

"Great," Blair drawls after taking a peek. "My IQ is higher than my weight."

"That must make you a genius," Jo quips and earns a nasty glare from the debutante.

Molly takes the open opportunity to snatch the paper. "I don't believe it! Jo and Sue Ann have the lowest IQs on the list!"

Jo flies from the bed she was lounging on so comfortably and rips the paper from Molly's hands faster than she could justify for someone who doesn't care. _Joanna Polniaczek_ is scribbled on the bottom line next to the lowest number. "Yeah, well…" She clams up and looks around, pausing on Sue Ann's pitiful horror-stricken face. She hopes hers doesn't look the same. Toying with the loose tie hanging around her neck and swallowing the lump in her throat, Jo forces out, "What does a dumb IQ score prove anyway?"

"Dumb being the operative word," Blair murmurs to the others with a sly smirk. They giggle shamelessly.

Chancing another glance at Sue Ann, who had gotten up to check out her score as well, Jo feels like she should say something. If the girl had a tail, it would be tucked between her legs. But then again, what is there for Jo to say? "_Hey, at least you're not the biggest idiot here. That would be me_"? Or maybe, "_Sorry everyone knows how stupid you are but if it makes you feel any better, I'm the dumbest schmuck of all_." Jo never was good with words of comfort so she opts to maintain her silence for now.

The gang spots Sue Ann's discomfort over being so exposed and pounces on it like prowling lions on a zebra with a broken leg, making snide remarks about her capabilities and jokes about her bleak future. The younger kids even comment that they'll tutor her but it'll cost her.

Then they set in on Jo.

She tries to shut them down with empty threats and shaking fists but all that earns her is a particularly low blow about the educational statistics of low-income families and, "If you become one of those juvenile drop-outs and need a lawyer, my mother knows a man who owes her a favor."

Not a minute later, Mrs. Garrett strides into the room with a book in hand asking Sue Ann to assist her with a math problem.

Sue Ann, upset like never before, walks past Mrs. Garrett and cries, "Boy, did you come to the wrong person for help!" She pauses and looks at the others before continuing in a quaking voice, "Yeah, it's real funny, isn't it girls?" She storms out.

"Sue Ann!" Mrs. Garrett calls after her dumbfounded and then turns to ask the girls what the situation is.

Jo, stewing in her anger and embarrassment, looks at the housemother with tight lips and piercing eyes. Her face is a tinge redder than normal too. It's the kind of visual that makes the older woman imagine steam fuming from her ears like Elmer Fudd.

"Jo? Did something happen between you and Sue Ann?"

The girl in question murmurs for Mrs. Garrett to "ask them" before fleeing the room in an identical fashion. Jo finds herself pacing the length of the walkway leading up to Dormitory A. She's angry—_furious_ even. She is furious, not only because Molly sort of read her score aloud and not only because the girls all thought it was funny to stomp on her self-esteem and not only because Blair has one more thing to rub in her face, but because she has no solid way to let off steam anymore. Not since the accident. If anyone were to try something with her right at this very moment… Jo envisions herself popping like a shaken-up soda bottle on some innocent bystander asking for directions and punching them square in the nose.

If Jo were honest with herself, she would recognize that her issue is the immeasurable amount of embarrassment she feels. Not until this moment did she ever have a reason to doubt her brain. She might not come from money or have two reliable parents or have a dazzling personality but she was smart, and that was the one thing she could count on. Now she has nothing and everyone here knows it. Well not everyone, not yet, but soon enough they will. It makes her nauseous when she realizes that she does, in fact, care what people think. Even the thickest skin can be penetrated with the right weapon. Jo scuffs her sneaker on the pavement kicking an imaginary rock before twisting and heading back in the other direction to continue her repetitive strides. She thinks to herself briefly that if girls were allowed to play school football, it would be the perfect sport for her. Every person on the opposing team would become her dormmates and she would crush them all, leading Eastland to an undefeated victory because the only team she wants to be a part of now is the kind that lets her hurt people.

* * *

Maybe there is a God. It's the only explanation Blair can come up with. Someone _must_ have heard her prayer, the one about Jo needing to go back where she came from. She called for an external power to pull the girl away and the very same day Tootie dropped in out of nowhere with that IQ paper. Yes. Things are definitely turning around. Blair feels a shift in the air. A change is coming. For one, the day following Tootie's reveal brings is a change in the academic pecking order.

"Blair…" Nancy growls. Blair, suddenly aware of how close she had been hovering over Nancy's shoulder to sneak a peek at her study guide sheet, backs away. "I told you before. Just because my IQ says I'm smartest girl here doesn't mean I am. I barely got a wink of sleep last night and this midterm has me on tenterhooks, so back off alright?"

"Excuse me for wanting the best."

Without looking up, Nancy says in annoyance, "Go track down Sue Ann or Jo and ask if you can borrow theirs."

Blair huffs, turns up her nose, and retreats to an unoccupied desk on the other side of the study hall room. Like _that_ was going to happen. She would sooner trust her own brain. Still, it doesn't stop her from thinking, _I bet Jo would know who Gregor Mendel was_, when she comes to the question and draws a blank. She probably shouldn't have waited until the last minute to fill this thing out.

* * *

"How are you handling… well, _you know_?"

Jo stays silent, focusing more on the floor tiles passing beneath her feet than her friend. She isn't handling it well but her pride keeps her from saying it aloud. Five of her classmates had already made jokes to her face since school started—God knows who they heard about it from—and her algebra teacher pulled her off to the side after catching wind of Jo's low IQ to offer extra tutoring. Talk about embarrassing. Having people talk about her behind her back was one thing but now her _teachers_ pity her.

"Sue Ann is a huge mess," Cindy says when Jo doesn't respond. "She doesn't respond well to bullies. I skipped Geography to comfort her in the bathroom this morning. We nearly missed Ms. Mahoney's exam." Jo looks up and meets Cindy's eyes, waiting for further explanation. "Rhonda McLean made fun of her. I was also in there to wash the blood off my hand." Jo's eyebrows arch in surprise. She thinks about everyone she has met since her arrival, puts a face with the name. Rhonda McLean. Yikes. Cindy must have been pretty angry and pretty _stupid_ to defend Sue Ann's honor when it came to a girl like Rhonda. "Luckily for me, Rhonda cares too much about her reputation to tattle, and no one was around to see it."

"What are you gonna do if she wants payback?" Jo has to ask.

Cindy shrugs, looking away. "Get my butt kicked, I guess. But not without a fight."

They turn into the classroom, dropping the conversation as they separate and fill their seats. Cindy is willing to take a Rhonda-sized bullet as payback for standing up for Sue Ann, and if Jo is a good friend, she knows she'll have to help her friend out if the time comes and she's around. _Darn it, Polniaczek_, Jo internally curses. _Why can't you be shallow and careless like Blair?_

"Okay, class," Ms. Mahoney begins with a bright smile on her face and a stack of papers in her hands. "Who's ready to pass my midterm?"

Jo abruptly feels like her mouth is the Sahara Desert and her stomach is sinking in quicksand. Her palms are moist. She had been so wrapped up in Cindy's problems that she had forgotten her own. This isn't any ordinary test. This is the moment of truth. The way Jo sees it, she's either just as smart as she was two days ago and knowing her IQ changes nothing, or this test confirms what everyone is telling her: that she's as dumb as a box of rocks. If she incorrectly answers too many questions, she loses. If she incorrectly answers one question that she _should_ know the answer to, she loses. There is no room for mistakes.

No pressure.

* * *

The last class of the day is a glimmer of light for most but for Blair Warner that last hour is almost certainly an hour of hell. Participating in P.E. equals sweat equals body odor equals an avoidable mid-day shower and an obligation to reapply all of her makeup. A true waste of time if you ask her.

However, it does have one perk: The Group is in it. Tumpy, Emily, Bitsy, and Trixie: four beautiful, popular, rich seniors who Blair desperately wants to fit in with. The Eastland Elite. They have a carefree coolness about them that she idolizes, and if she can befriend them on a party-inviting level, she'll be set for the rest of high school known as the only sophomore to ever get into The Group. She's practically there, but they haven't officially invited her over to their dorm yet which will seal the deal.

"_Ooph_." Blair feels like she's been body-checked by Muhammad Ali. She all but falls down completely. "Hey!" Turning around to see the perpetrator zooming down the court, she sends a venomous glare in Jo's direction.

"I can't believe that thing is your roommate," Tumpy says.

"_Really_," Emily adds in that mellow yet profound tone of hers.

"Neither can I," Blair whines in agreement, glancing down at her shoulder to make sure she hasn't started to bruise.

The class is playing basketball. Or at least that's what they're supposed to be playing. Blair and The Group have elected to stand around and migrate in the direction of the ball at the speed of molasses. They were divided on both teams so they pretend to guard one another if the ball comes too close, and because this isn't a real game there are more than five to a team. The only person who ever notices and _cares_ about them not participating is the teacher, Mrs. Hagaman (or as The Group and Blair calls her, Mrs. Hag).

Bitsy says, "It's like she's from some other planet."

"Like Jupiter!" Trixie exclaims. Blair blinks at her, wondering how she made it to the twelfth grade. "You know, 'cause Jupiter is the planet where boys are from. Or is it Mars?"

Mrs. Hagaman blows her whistle, waves the girls over, and tells them to call it a day. They make a beeline for the locker room.

"_Jo_. That is such a _boy's_ name." Tumpy laughs at her own observation, tugging her gym shirt over her head and tossing it into her designated locker. "Are we sure she's a girl? Maybe she belongs at Bates Academy. She looks like she does."

"She acts like it too," Emily says, slipping out of her shorts.

"And she's the dumbest girl in school," Bitsy contributes with a big grin. "She would fit right in with those sweaty, macho meatheads at Bates."

The Group laughs. Blair forces herself to go along with it in a mechanical fashion, laughing with them the way she does with guests and potential business partners at her parents' prestigious summer dinner parties on the yacht. She places her hand on Tumpy's shoulder and laughs a little louder as she jokes, "Jo is _so_ dumb, and she… she's _such_ a boy that you could give her a haute couture fur coat with _diamonds_ for buttons and she'd sell it to fix her motorbike." They laugh even louder.

It's strange; all this time she had been saying those same exact insults in one way or another with a bit more creativity—_because if you're going to insult somebody, creativity counts_—but only now does it bother her. She wants to stop herself, to tell The Group that "Jo" isn't her name on the school roster and that masculinity doesn't make you less of a girl and that Jo could outsmart all four of them (five, if she's being honest) in any subject except perhaps skin care judging by Jo's pores. But mostly Blair wants to know why she has this nagging need to defend the brunette, even against herself. It is as if Jo is Blair's plaything to mock and ridicule but she is off limits to everyone else. It also feels phony, in a way, to share these insults when Jo isn't around to hear them.

Blair throws the mere thought of Jo out of her mind and shimmies out of her shirt. The others head toward the showers so she follows but only sticks her head far enough under the spray to get her hair wet. Once her hair has been rung out, she puts her shirt back on. Skipping showers all together on her effortless days has earned her a few very loud lectures on hygiene in the past, courtesy of Mrs. Hag, but it isn't like Blair perspires any more than a non-P.E. student so she has resorted to making it _look_ like she follows the rules.

Finishing before the others, Blair applies fresh deodorant (just in case), tosses her bag over her shoulder, and exits the locker room only to have a fist grab her by the front of her shirt, pull her over, and slam her against the wall.

"Goodness!" Blair's heart is about to pound right through her chest; she doesn't know if she's ever been more scared or surprised in her life. Jo's piercing blue eyes suggest that she's trying to burn holes into Blair. She's still wearing her gym uniform, the blonde notices. "Jo, what do you think you're doing?" Her voice is weaker than she would like, eyeing the fistful of shirt still balled below her chin.

"You just couldn't be cool about it, could you?"

"Um…" Glancing back down once more, Blair delicately places her fingers on Jo's wrist and pulls it away lightly. Jo's resolve softens slightly with the gesture and let's go. Blair then brushes the wrinkles out of her shirt. "I don't know what you are referring to."

"Don't play games, Warner. You and your stinkin' friends. You were all makin' fun of me! I heard you."

Blair wasn't aware that Jo was near them. Maybe she wasn't; locker rooms do echo. She wants to shield herself and The Group from blame, but she can't. The guilt won't let her.

"We were just kidding," she tries. "It isn't worth getting all worked up over."

"Yeah it is, Blair. It's a big deal to me."

Jo is a tough girl but when she doesn't realize it, vulnerable sincerity slips through. Blair doesn't know how to react when she spies it breaking past the girl's hardened bravado. She has only detected it one other time, on Jo's first night. That moment when Blair made a joke about Jo's Bronx friends and it hurt her in a deeper way than Blair had intended… It's a particularly shiny glint in Jo's eyes, a crack in her voice that only ever comes out when she's is trying to make a point that she frustratingly can't get quite across. That night in the meadow, she wanted for Blair to understand that what you see isn't what you get. But what is it that Blair needs to understand now? What exactly is the big deal? That Blair's friends aren't allowed made fun of Jo? That _she_ isn't allowed to make fun of Jo? Since when?

"Tumpy and them..." Blair stammers, folding her arms over her chest. "They like me. The Group actually likes me. I-I mean why shouldn't they? But I think they're considering letting me in."

Jo nods once, brows never relaxing. "So you thought makin' me feel like dirt was worth getting into your stupid Group. Real nice, Princess. Don't forget to mention me in your acceptance speech." She steps past Blair and walks toward the locker room.

Blair sighs. "Jo, wait." Jo does, stopping before she reaches the door. "I didn't tell them. About the score, I mean. That's why you're upset, isn't it?" It makes sense to Blair. That has to be the problem. Jo is insecure about her IQ—the independent variable in this equation, the only new change—so it has to be about that. "I don't know who did. Maybe they overheard Sue Ann complaining. It wasn't me. Honest."

"Didn't stop you from laughing with them though, did it?"

And there it is. The problem isn't that Blair's friends know about the score. It has to do with Blair. She unknowingly betrayed some sort of trust by ridiculing Jo with The Group which was somehow unlike when Blair ridicules her alone or with the dorm girls. There is a difference, and truthfully, Blair already knew it deep down. That explains why it felt so foreign coming from her mouth. Things have gotten awfully complicated this semester. Blair, back flat against the wall with her eyes shut as she stands alone, is struck with the sickening feeling of remorse. She wonders if she's developing one of those so-called consciences. Gosh, she hopes not.

* * *

Edna Garrett is not a dumb woman. She may have grown up in a small rural town in Wisconsin, not having gone to an exclusive prep school, and she may not have had a particularly high IQ score (which she can neither deny nor affirm because she doesn't remember the specifics), but Edna Garrett is not a dumb woman. Some might even credit her as smart, intuitive, and wise. She brazenly likes to think of herself that way.

Much like Jo and Sue Ann, Mrs. Garrett had that underappreciated raw natural talent in the classroom. A thirst for knowledge and an ability to absorb it that cannot be taught. She put in the work to earn her grades, sure, but never with the effort that Nancy has to put in. That's not to discredit Nancy because Mrs. Garrett knows the girl is very smart and that her high IQ is only a testament to it, but Jo, Sue Ann, and Edna are a different breed of smart. They are smart regardless of a silly number.

There is an art to Mrs. Garrett's know-all-see-all techniques that she credits almost entirely to her innate intuition. As a child, she could trust her gut instinct to determine whether or not her kid sister Beverly Ann was lying about stealing her cookie or playing with her doll. As a teen, one look at Beverly Ann's face would tell Edna if her sister had worn her favorite sweater without asking. As an adult, she can detect a hint in the pitch of Beverly Ann's voice that tells Edna her sister is lying about being too sick to visit for Thanksgiving. It's a gift, and Mrs. Garrett is grateful for it in the line of work she's in.

Wisdom? That is a perk that can only be earned with time and experience. You run and you scrape your knee; you learn to slow down. Those are the facts of life, and they cannot be taught, only learned. It has also proven to be a helpful tool on countless occasions.

And yet…

"Mrs. Garrett, you have to do something."

Mrs. Garrett turns her head to see Cindy, Natalie, Molly, and Tootie standing at her door. They take the liberty of entering the room now that they have her attention.

"What's wrong, girls?"

"What's right?" Natalie replies.

Molly says, "Nancy is upset about being the smartest, and Jo is upset about being the dumbest, and Sue Ann isn't too happy about being the second dumbest, and Tootie has made a big mess of things if you ask me."

Tootie cocks her head, offended by the accusation, and places her hands on her hips. "Me? You're the one who announced it!"

"Girls," the housemother warns. They quiet.

She presses a hand to her temple and shakes her head, wondering how she could be so wrapped up in her plans to fly an airplane that she could miss the house falling apart under her feet. Grounding Tootie and sending her to Mr. Bradley's office was the obvious solution, but Mrs. Garrett hadn't accounted for the other girls affected. When students weren't doing something punishable, the older woman usually tried to give them space to work things out on their own. She had wrongfully assumed that this was the case. Now she knows it isn't.

Mrs. Garrett tells the girls not to worry and that if the situation hasn't been resolved by the end of today, a good old fashion pep talk from the headmaster to smooth things over may be in order.

* * *

Today is just not Jo's day. The insults, the jokes, the pity, _Blair_… That was enough to drive Jo crazy but her crazy keeps butting heads with Nancy's and Sue Ann's crazy, and it is sending her over the top. Armed with her _Lord of the Flies_ novel and a heavy case of nerves as she awaits the midterm scores, Jo is determined to finish before the class's next discussion.

_Ralph lay in a covert, wondering about_— Flip. —_his wounds. The bruised flesh was inches in diameter_— Flip. –_over his right ribs, with a swollen and bloody_— Flip. —_scar where the spear had hit him_. Flip.

Jo's eyes rise to the girl sitting next to her on the sofa. "They make fans with blades that spin themselves, you know. You ain't gotta use your book."

"Mind your own business, Jo," Nancy warns.

Sue Ann enters through the side door and scans the board fretfully. "Oh, uh, didn't Ms. Mahoney post the exam scores yet?"

"What are you asking us for?" Nancy asks.

Jo says, "Yeah, you've got eyes."

It looks to Jo like Sue Ann wants to say something, probably start an argument but not in the case of 2-against-1 so she resists her need to lash out and takes a seat on the other side of Jo. If she had spoken up, Jo ironically can see herself siding with Sue Ann. They're experiencing the same problems, having the same judgment and assumptions cast upon them. Being the dumbest person in the room is a terrible feeling and they both know it. But Nancy? Poor Nancy is too smart. Poor Nancy has to deal with a little bit of pressure. Poor Nancy hasn't been condescended once all day. The tension in the air only doubles for Jo when Blair comes through the front door.

"Jo," Blair acknowledges in passing.

"Blair," Jo acknowledges back, watching her hurry up the stairs.

Nancy squints, eyeing Jo with an indistinguishable expression on her face.

"What?" Jo demands to know. Nancy just shrugs and goes back to fan-reading.

The three sit there, hyperaware of one another's body movements. Sue Ann is tapping her fingers on the arm of the couch. Jo can't seem to keep her leg from bouncing anxiously. Nancy continues to flip.

_Tap. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Flip. _

_Tap. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Flip._

_Tap. Bounce, bounce, bounce. Flip_

"There you three are," Mrs. Garrett says, elated. "I've been looking for you. You're not still upset about those IQ scores are you?"

_Couldn't have been looking too hard_, Jo nearly says in observing that they have been sitting in the most frequented room in the entire dorm building for a solid fifteen minutes. Jo had come straight here after work in anticipation.

"We took our midterms this morning," Sue Ann informs her.

"Oh well you always do great on exams. I'm sure you did well."

Ms. Mahoney bursts into the common room just then with Molly, Cindy, and Natalie on her tail. "Midterms are over!" she announces, marching over to the board to post Dorm A results. The girls scan for their scores and back away with smiles on their faces.

"Ms. Mahoney, would you please do me a favor?" Mrs. Garrett asks. "Tell these girls they did well on their exams so they can relax."

The teacher looks down at the frowning girls staring up at her. "I wish I could. I even double checked your scores."

"We didn't do so hot, huh?"

"You failed."

"All of us?" Jo asks in disbelief.

The woman nods. "Nancy, you obviously guessed at half the answers."

"I tightened up. I couldn't think!"

"And Sue Ann, I don't know where your mind was. You gave answers where there weren't even questions."

Sue Ann looks like she's about to cry. Jo needs her to not do that because then she might, and she really, really doesn't want to. Not with other people around and not because of some stupid test that shouldn't even be _this_ important to Jo.

"Hey, how many points do we get for spelling our names right?" Jo half-heartedly jokes to lighten the mood followed by a hollow laugh.

"Jo, be glad I don't give points for that. You misspelled yours."

Jo's pretend-happy smile drops immediately. "Huh?"

"You forgot the Z." She forgot the Z? God, she forgot the Z! Her face falls into her hands as she flushes with humiliation. "I don't know what to say."

Mrs. Garrett tries to rectify the situation with her golden optimism. "With all this IQ fuss, no wonder you had a rough time taking that test. Don't worry. Next time—"

"There won't be a next time, Mrs. Garrett!" Sue Ann stands, legs shaking and voice trembling. "Because I'm gonna leave Eastland."

"What?"

"Who am I kidding? It's gonna keep getting harder and I'm not up to it."

The housemother apprehensively turns to the other two. "Nancy… Jo… Will you help me talk some sense into her?"

"I don't think I'd be very convincing, Mrs. Garrett. I'm going to leave Eastland too." Nancy stands as well, joins Sue Ann.

Mrs. Garrett slowly turns to look at Jo one more time, waiting.

* * *

"Yeah. Uh-huh, I'm sure. Thanks, Uncle Sal. Bud will… Or Paulie. Got it. Okay. Tell Ma I'll be there. I will. Bye."

"You're really going back?" Cindy observes sounding slightly abandoned.

Jo untangles herself from the cord and hooks the phone back into place before turning back to her friend. They are the only ones around. Jo had waited until everyone else was out or busy to make the phone call, and Cindy had come in with a basketball under her arm while Jo was in the middle of her explanation to Jo's understanding Uncle Sal.

She shrugs. "It's for the best."

"The best for who?"

"For me." Cindy looks down and Jo can tell she's taking it personally. "Hey, come on." Jo throws an arm around her shoulder and shakes it. "We can still be friends. I'll call. Well maybe not at first because my ma's phone was disconnected last week but I'll find a payphone or something. I just need to get away from here." The blonde sighs and then nods, as if to say _I don't like it but I accept it_.

* * *

Respecting Mrs. Garrett's last request, Jo finds herself going along with Sue Ann and Nancy to visit Mr. Bradley. The housemother was adamant that he could and would solve their problems. Jo highly doubts that. When they finally find him, he's in a classroom monitoring as Tootie cashes in on her punishment of writing "I shall not be nosy" 500 times on the blackboard for stealing the IQ list.

"Mr. Bradley, I've been looking all over for you," Mrs. Garrett says.

"Well you found me. What do you want?"

"These girls are so upset with your IQ foolishness that they're packing to leave school."

"All three of them? What's the matter?"

Sue Ann explains, "I'm not smart enough to be at Eastland."

"I can't handle the pressure," Nancy supplies.

"They flunked the midterms thanks to you." Mrs. Garrett is conspicuously angry.

"Mrs. Garrett, I am sorry the girls did poorly on the test but I don't think we should go overboard and blame their IQ. It would be dishonest to say that IQs meant nothing. And I don't see any great harm in the girls knowing their scores. We all can't have the same IQ, and if a girl has a lower score, she knows she's gotta push that much harder to get the same results. It's simple." He pauses, and then glances at Jo and Sue Ann. "I'm not going too fast for you two, am I?"

"You're just like the rest of them, Mr. Bradley," Sue Ann tells him.

Before she can continue, Jo says in disgust, "He's worse. He runs the school so you'd think he would be better at treatin' all of his students equally but that ain't the case, is it Mr. B?"

He gives her a stern look. She shakes her head and slips between Mrs. Garrett and the doorway. The woman calls her name but Jo can't bring herself to listen. She passes Ms. Mahoney in the hallway and then breaks into a run. That man doesn't know how to handle bullying, education, punishment, or his own students. It's his first year but at this rate it's bound to be his last.

On her way back to the dorm, Jo spots a boy walking in her direction. Boys aren't usually roaming the campus this late so normally Jo would put up her defenses but the figure looks familiar in build and height, and as he gets closer, she knows why.

"Hey, you! Just who I was looking for."

"Hi, Robbie," Jo mutters in passing, catching a glimpse of the visitor badge fastened to his polo.

He jogs to keep up. "What's eating you?"

"I don't wanna talk about it."

"Okay, we won't talk about it."

A second later, Jo groans. "I'm going home. It's the only answer."

"What are you talking about?"

"This whole thing has gotten so out'a hand. My… My, oh I don't even know what to call them, found out my IQ score and the next thing I knew I turned into a social pariah. I got no money, no brains, no friends, and my headmaster thinks it's 'cause I'm not trying hard enough. Do you believe that?" She technically had _some_ money, _some_ brains, and _some_ friends but in comparison to the rest of the girls at Eastland and in comparison to what she had before this IQ mess, she has nothing.

"Jo..."

"And Blair! Oh man, you should'a heard Blair today. Just when I think that girl can't get any lower, she does. She is a snake in the grass, Robbie. She really is."

"Hey, maybe you should calm down."

"Don't tell me to calm down." She looks at him incredulously, amazed that he would suggest such a thing. "You weren't there. I don't need this. I don't need Peekskill. I am going back home, having fun with my friends, and getting into trouble. That's what kids are supposed to be doing at our age right? When I go home, it won't matter that I'm not smart or girly or popular. None of that stuff matters there. As long as you got a good group of friends who have your back, that's all you need."

"You can't go."

He reaches for her hand or maybe her arm—he hadn't thought that far ahead—but she puts distance between them as soon as she catches on.

"What does it say about me if I stay?"

"What does it say about you if you go?"

"Jeez, Robbie. It says I'm an open target. A sitting duck! Where I'm from, you don't stand around and wait for the bullets to hit ya. You run for cover."

"Have you noticed how you keep calling the Bronx 'home'? You don't live there anymore, and you haven't for, what, three months? Four? Five? Your home is where you live, not where you're from. And Jo, come on! You might not see it now but there is no such thing as a sitting duck in this town. The closest we have to group violence is the golf team." That earns an odd look from the girl, then a small smile. "Better watch out for those stray golf balls." That pulls a real smile out of her. He smiles too. "Jo, they were only having fun. Be a sport, huh? They'll be making some other girl miserable next week. Tough it out for me?"

The 'be a sport' part irritates Jo but his speech was strangely endearing.

"Besides, after seventeen dates I'm hoping one of these days we'll go to a real resteraunt instead of the arcade and I'll finally get a kiss. That won't happen if you leave."

That bolts Jo's feet to the ground in an instant. She turns to get a better look at him. He smiles his perfect smile at her and runs his perfect hand through his perfect hair. It hadn't crossed her mind once that he was expecting something more from her. Well maybe it had but she wasn't having the same kind of thoughts. Hers were more along the line of _Other girls make this casual kissing stuff look so easy_ and _I just ate a chili dog. Nothing is happening tonight_.

Jo playfully rolls her eyes after a beat and pushes his chest when he starts making fishy kissing noises. He continues even after she starts walking.

"Would you cut it out," she says and he starts laughing. "Alright, alright. I'll give it a week."

"So will I," he says and she knows he's not talking about the same thing.

* * *

By the time _M*A*S*H_ comes on, Blair has mentally beaten herself to a pulp, going over the things she could have said or done to dissuade Tumpy and her friends instead of insulting Jo. It probably wouldn't bother her so much, she figures, if Jo _wasn't_ planning on leaving. But Cindy said she'll be gone by this time tomorrow and Mrs. Garrett confirmed the claim. So Jo is leaving. She's going away and never coming back, and Blair is getting things just the way she wanted them. The girl who acts like a boy, thinks like a philosopher, smells like a mechanics' garage, and eats like a pig will no longer be hogging all of Blair's attention. Problem solved.

Except maybe, possibly Blair doesn't want her problem to be solved anymore. People say that magnets attract and Blair doesn't really believe that logic applies to people but Jo is the yang to Blair's yin. How do you go back to being _just_ yin after you've discovered the yang? That shift Blair felt this morning, that feeling of change… That had nothing to do with grades or hierarchy, she's realizing. It was telling her to realize what she valued. Now she has.

Jo comes in, sees Blair watching TV with the rest of the gang (sans Nancy), and bounds up the stairs without a word. Blair pushes the bowl of popcorn off of her lap and into Natalie's before following the girl up to their room. She enters and sees Jo folding clothes and laying them in neat stacks on top of her comforter.

Blair clears the tickle in her throat. "Can we talk?"

Jo answers by looking up at her roommate once and then continuing her task.

"I... I know that you're upset by what I did earlier today, and you have every right to be." Blair cautiously sits on the edge of Jo's bed and idly begins to help fold to keep from staring or fiddling with her hands. "You shouldn't leave Eastland just because my beautiful," she plays with her hair and tilts her head back like a Old Hollywood actress, grinning just a little, "but sometimes big head get in the way." She chances a glance at Jo who is successfully masking her emotions but does roll her eyes. "I am sorry, Jo. I'd hate to lose a friend over something so childish."

"A friend, huh?"

"Well, yes. Unless you prefer 'flying monkey'. You're one of those, too." Blair fails at suppressing a smile.

"Oh yeah? That would make you the Wicked Witch then?"

Jo smirks at the blonde's faux-offended face. She grips a pair of socks that she had just rolled together and bounces them off of Blair's face. Blair takes the flannel shirt in her hands and tosses it on top of Jo's head. Before they know it, clean clothes are flying across the room and they're laughing so hard that they can be heard from the first floor.

Jo will tell Blair that she isn't going anywhere and that Blair is stuck with her before the night is over. And when she forgets to mention her talk with Robbie, which she was planning on telling Blair about, she won't think anything of it.

* * *

**Author's note**: Sooooo much rewriting. Sorry I took so long to update but hopefully the length makes up for it? Anyway, thank you thank you thank you for the reviews. They're always appreciated! I can never get enough of your feedback. I bet you that there are at least a dozen errors in this chapter. It's the byproduct of rewriting an entire chapter. But it's 4 in the morning and I'm to the point of "Screw it! Let them have the chapter so you can go to bed!" So please let me know if you find any mistakes. Constructive criticism is always welcome as well.

Also, serious apologies for how long this fic is taking me. Blair is finally developing a conscience and it took us like… half a year to get here. Oh my god, no, more than that. It took us _over_ _half a year_. That is just pathetic and embarrassing on my part. I need to learn to update more. At this rate, they'll be awkwardly hand-grazing at the one-year mark. What do you guys think of the back-and-forth perspectives? I think it made this chapter flow better than the others but maybe not.


	6. Chapter 6

Things return to normal after Jo decides to stay at Eastland. Robbie was right about the girls forgetting about her IQ within the next couple of days, and she no longer imagines mapping out her escape because her living arrangement with Blair has stopped feeling like a prison cell. It had taken Jo this long to realize that her definitions of home and family weren't accurate. She has two homes. And two mothers. And two whole sets of people to give her hell and make her feel like she belongs. Truthfully, the only thing keeping Jo's life from being one hundred percent perfect is the weather. Winter had taken a toll on the northeast in the past week. The temperature dropped twenty degrees in one day and has been dropping daily ever since. Snow blanketed the campus lightly once and is in the middle of a fierce repeat. What's a girl to do?

"Cindy and I are gonna go play some one-on-one. Tell Mrs. G that we'll be back before dark."

"It's twenty degrees outside and it's snowing. You'll be icicles before you reach the court!"

Blair bites the inside of her cheek in regret when she realizes she just let a potential "one-on-one" joke slide right past her. Things really are changing between her and Jo. They are on good terms now. Friends, one might say, if one were to exclude their daily arguments over the small things: the toothpaste cap, the common room TV, the alarm clock, a handheld video game Jo plays that makes too much noise…

"We'll wear coats," Cindy pacifies as she unhooks them from the rack and hands Jo hers.

The door bursts open behind the girls and a gust of wind carries in the housemother, so bundled up to fight the weather that she's unrecognizable. Piece by piece, she peels, unwraps, sheds, and strips until her fluffy figure is but a pile on the floor. She _burrs_ and rubs her hands along her arms to create friction.

"It took long enough but that blizzard has finally made it to the area." The woman lights up like a light bulb and says, "Say, how about I make you girls some cocoa." She blissfully marches five steps in the direction of the kitchen without waiting for an answer before circling back around with ogling eyes. "Sneakers, coats, a basketball… I'm going to take a wild guess and say that you two aren't about to attend the ballet."

"Hey," Jo says, "I heard that Nutcracker play is a real treat. We better get going, Cindy, or we'll miss the part where he cracks the nuts."

Cindy nods along and turns in sync with Jo toward door. Mrs. Garrett doesn't wait a second to place a hand on each of their shoulders. They turn around with sunken shoulders and pathetic frowns.

"Now, now. It's far too cold to be going outside. Your parents would never forgive me if I sent you home for the holidays with pneumonia. Why don't you find other ways to busy yourself—start packing, perhaps?—and I'll bring you your cocoa when it's done."

Behind the older woman, Blair sits with a triumphant smile plastered to her face. As she intended, they notice and glare back at her. Mrs. Garrett catches on and adds, "Extra marshmallows if you find something to do that isn't fighting."

* * *

There isn't a lot to do at Eastland. There is even less to do in a dormitory you've been forbidden to leave. Jo of course already knew this because nothing has changed since she and Blair were grounded. She learned months ago to entertain herself in atypical ways. When she ran out of homework to do and games to play, she resorted to actually _socializing_ with her dormmates. Her friends, she's calling them now (even though some days she'd rather they be crushed insects on the soles of her shoes). Sue Ann, for instance, is also a scholarship student. Molly is pretty handy with a guitar. Natalie thinks kissing is gross but is in love with the boy who delivers the groceries. Both of Tootie's parents are lawyers. Nancy has a brother and a sister. Blair… Well Jo avoids Blair when she can, but she's noticed that Blair talks to herself in the mirror. A lot. It's weird.

Cindy is great. Jo is thankful to have her around. She's like the sister Jo never had, and the brother. Jo learned that Cindy's parents are separated as well, and that she is also an only child. Toss their similar interests into the melting pot and she's got herself a new best friend. They get each other. Best of all, Cindy doesn't come with unwritten rules or expectations to abide by like Jo's old friends.

However, they can't reach each other's minds like some best friends and sometimes it can be a problem.

"Are you seeing Robbie?"

Jo tenses. "We…see each other."

Cindy doesn't pick up on her uneasiness and aims for clarity. "Are you going together yet? He's visited Eastland plenty of times now…and he stops by! The only other boy to stick around this long is Roger, and he hardly ever comes in to say hello."

"That's because he's more comfortable in the backseat of his car," Jo jests.

Cindy laughs.

"I don't know if we are," Jo tells her honestly.

"Well have you kissed? Has he given you his letterman jacket?"

"I got my own jacket." Robbie has offered her his jacket a few times but she adamantly rejects it. Jo rubs her hands on her jeans awkwardly and looks up at the Joni Mitchell poster staring down at her. She decides that Joni and Sissy Spacek from _Carrie_ share too close a resemblance and has to look elsewhere. "And we did. Once. A week ago."

They've been out twice since that expensive dinner date where she gave into Robbie's pleading eyes and let him kiss her on the lips. On the two following outings to less expensive restaurants, Jo politely offered her cheek to him—the least she could do for someone so gentlemanly and patient. He never complains that Jo isn't as "fast" as the other girls, or that she is leading him on.

Cindy traces the thread on the blanket beneath her, thinking. It's becoming clear to her that Jo doesn't want to talk or even think about this thing she has with Robbie but that doesn't stop her from asking, "Do you even wanna date him?"

A minute passes, then another. Jo's mind is bustling with yes's and no's and I don't know's. She can't settle on an answer. A stir of commotion coming from the other side of the door catches their attention. It's Sue Ann, Blair, and Nancy jabbering energetically. The noise continues on and then fades away, signifying that they probably took their conversation to Blair's room.

Jo sighs loudly. She doesn't want to lose Robbie; that much she knows. She's crazy to be unsure of whether or not she wants to date Robbie, right? Robbie is a good guy and a great friend. He does what Jo wants to do. He goes where Jo wants to go. He even flosses regularly. _If he has any flaws at all_, Jo thinks, _it's that he's too good and too considerate_.

But those aren't _real_ reasons, so she answers, "I guess I do."

Cindy smiles. The answer seems to appease her so Jo finds herself smiling too. They change the subject then, many times. Sports statistics, what they'll do when they go home for Christmas vacation, Jo's boss who isn't as bad as she originally thought even if he does voice his sexist opinions from time to time, Mrs. Garrett's delicious cocoa (which arrives approximately thirty minutes after they spoke with her downstairs along with a silly explanation about how she gets easily sidetracked), Winter Olympics… Then, when silence consumes too much time, they come full circle.

"Jo, we're friends, right?"

"Yeah..."

"And you don't care that I'm different?"

"No..."

"Then how come you never ask me about _my_ love life?"

Jo isn't sure how to reply at first and stirs her cup of hot chocolate around to keep herself looking preoccupied. Maybe wanting to have this sort of conversation is innate for girls but Jo never expected it to come up with Cindy; it never has before. If she tells Cindy that she never asks _anyone_ about their love life because she doesn't care, she risks sounding like a jerk. If she tells Cindy that she didn't know Cindy _had_ a love life, she risks sounding like a bigger jerk. Jo has an idea of who the girl has her eye on though. Cindy is the very opposite of coy. If there was anything substantial going on between Cindy and said girl, Jo would know by now.

"I didn't think it was my business," Jo answers, honest but diplomatic. When Cindy doesn't answer, she playfully tags on, "So who is she?"

"Guess!"

"Alright. Uh. Karen Franklin." A girl from biology class who Cindy once paired up with for a project.

Cindy makes a face. "What? No. Guess again."

"Annie Carlton." A girl who occasionally joins them in a game of pick-up basketball.

"She's pretty," Cindy admits after giving it some thought, "but no."

Jo slaps her hands on her thighs animatedly. "Well then, beats me!"

Cindy recognizes the artificial tone in Jo's voice, half disappointed and half embarrassed. "You already know. How'd you find out?"

Jo shrugs her shoulders modestly. She could hardly tell her friend that she was as subtle as a stampede. "Just sort of picked up on it one day. Cindy, are you sure she likes you…like that?"

"Sure, I'm sure."

"But she's always talking about boys."

Sue Ann has a reputation for being crazy about boys. _She might be the only girl in the school who cares more about boys than Blair_, Jo muses. Even when they aren't relevant to the conversation, she finds a way to bring them up. Not to mention Sue Ann was raised by Wholesome Country People. Her family is the conservative type that goes to church every Sunday and helps out with the nearest 4-H club. They probably have a cross and a painting of The Last Supper hanging up in their house. Even if she has feelings for Cindy, what are the chances of her acting on them?

"So was I before you showed up."

Jo tends to forget that the people of Eastland had lives before she showed up. Picturing Cindy raving about cute boys is laughable now.

"What about her diary? Tootie told us what she wrote. There was that surfer…"

Cindy grins like Jo had said something to intentionally amuse her before walking over to her dresser. She digs through the top drawer. "'Muscular sun-tanned body'? 'Golden blonde hair'? I'm from California. What do you think I do all summer?" She tosses a pocket-sized photo album into Jo's lap.

Jo picks it up and flips a few pages before finding a picture of Cindy holding onto a surfboard with one hand and a shiny medal in the other. In a comical fashion, Jo opens, shuts, and opens her mouth again like a gaping fish.

"And you don't think that's wishful thinking?" she asks weakly.

"Trust me on this, Jo."

* * *

"'Luke Duke.' Kind of a silly name, don't you think?"

Friday nights during Christmas vacation aren't half as exciting for the girls as a typical Friday night. Blizzards and Mrs. Garrett are two impassible barriers. Most of the girls will be on their way home soon, but in the mean time, _The Dukes of Hazzard_ is here to keep them company.

Natalie smiles to herself. "If I met a man who looked like Tom Wopat, I wouldn't care what his name was."

The girls laugh and start listing actors they would find attractive no matter what. Warren Beatty, Blair says. Robert Redford, Robbie Benson, and Harrison Ford, Nancy adds wistfully. Sue Ann gestures to the TV set and mentions John Schneider. Tootie lists Mike Evans and Jermaine Jackson. Natalie adds Bruce Springsteen, Shaun Cassidy and Leif Garrett like she is offended that they hadn't been brought up yet. Some giggle and some cringe at all of Molly's choices, most of which are aging politicians and environmentalists who had been on the covers of newspapers and magazines. Dan Rather elicits an especially disgusted response. Strangely, when Cindy and Jo come down and ask what all the commotion is about, Sue Ann tells them it's nothing that would interest them. The others share confused glances but don't speak up.

"Why not?" Cindy asks.

Blair repeats, "Yeah, why not?"

Perhaps this mystery of Cindy's sexuality could finally be put to rest once and for all. Blair would be lying if she said she isn't still curious about the truth. People talk. Blair hears things. Just last week she heard Dana Miller telling Maria Valdez that Cindy allegedly looked at her funny. Whether or not the tomboy is aware of it, she has a reputation of her own as the boyish weirdo with wandering eyes. Blair didn't want to believe it could be true when she first heard the rumors months ago, but Cindy hasn't exactly given her a reason to believe otherwise and she _does_ get a little hands-y sometimes. Even more so with Sue Ann. Blair wonders if Sue Ann has noticed or heard the rumors. Tootie explains what they had been talking about, and Blair inquires who Cindy finds most attractive.

"You know Cindy doesn't care about this kind of thing," Sue Ann cuts in.

Cindy shifts on her feet. Jo stands next to her, noticeably uncomfortable, and silently throws a few questioning looks at Cindy that Blair picks up on. There is undeniably something going unspoken here.

"No one I can think of." _That's it?_ she wants to ask. _That's all you're going to give me?_ "Except Dorothy Hamill. What a _body_."

For the briefest moment Blair is partially elated and partially scandalized. She had been right! Then Cindy starts laughing and Jo does too. Eventually the others decide it's safe to laugh along as if to say, _Oh I get it. What a jokester, that Cindy_. This aggravates Blair. Was this not a serious matter? Blair had been taught to take it very seriously. Cindy is a nice girl but doesn't Eastland deserve to know if she's also a strange girl? They go to an _all-girl_ _school_.

The pair finds a spot on the floor and snatches some celery sticks from the tray sitting on Molly's lap. During the commercial break between _Dukes_ and _Dallas_, Sue Ann volunteers to take the food dish back into the kitchen. Blair follows.

"Blair, I know Eastland enforces the buddy system but I'm only going down the hall."

Blair's lips press into a firm line. She falls into step with Sue Ann's pace. "I'm not here for that. I wanted to ask you something. Privately." Sue Ann slows down. "It's about Cindy."

That catches Sue Ann by surprise.

"What about her?"

Blair takes a moment to phrase her wording in a way that will be direct without giving Sue Ann cause to jump to Cindy's defense.

"Sue Ann, you're close with Cindy. Does she seem sort of… Is Cindy…"

"Is Cindy what?"

They've made it to the kitchen. Sue Ann makes her way over to the sink and rinses away the remnants of onion dip. Blair lingers in the doorway.

"Have you ever noticed the way Cindy is always hugging you and touching you?" It comes out all at once, fast. _So much for caution_. Sue Ann faces her with an unreadable expression. "Or the way she looks at you?"

"What are you getting at, Blair?" Sue Ann has to ask though Blair has made her point very clear.

Blair moves closer, feeling it necessary for some reason to box in the conversation. "Surely you've heard what everyone says about her. They say— They say Cindy is..." Blair cannot force out any of the words often used to describe Cindy. _Gay, lesbian, a dyke, homosexual_… Those words scare Blair. They hold too much weight. Riots are started over those words. People are killed over those words. Blair isn't trying to start a riot or get anyone killed. She only knows what she's been taught. People deserve to know the truth about these things. The way she sees it, she is only trying to supply her school with some much-needed information. Pressing forward with a sunken-gut feeling, Blair says, "Look, don't you find it the least bit odd that she never goes on dates? Doesn't it bother you knowing you share a room with someone like that?"

But then Sue Ann surprises Blair.

"_Enough_," Sue Ann snaps, sloshing the clean tray onto the counter and turning to Blair completely. "Cindy is my best friend. Don't you think I would do something if I felt threatened? I care about her and I won't stand by while you slander her name like this. I know what people say, but I also know Cindy. There is nothing to worry about."

They stand there for a long moment, Sue Ann with her arms folded over her chest and Blair wearing her infamous I'm Out of Line and I'm Sorry frown of remorse.

Sue Ann sighs and places the dish back in the cabinet. "We better get back in there. I don't want to miss _Dallas_."

* * *

Blair does drop the subject. She has no choice, for the next day brings snow plows, packed luggage, and airport tickets.

"On the double, girls! On the double! The bus will be here any minute!"

Christmas would be here soon. The girls were instructed to be packed and ready to be driven to the airport by noon. It is five minutes past and a bus will be along just as soon as it loads the airport-bound girls from the next dorm over.

Mrs. Garrett stands with her fists planted firmly on her hips like a den mother on a mission. Nancy tromps down the staircase two at a time with her long legs and nearly collides with Tootie who zooms through the common room and down the hallway on her roller skates muttering about a missing hairbrush. Cindy walks out the front door with two oversized bags hoisted over her shoulders and Sue Ann following behind her. Natalie, Jo, Blair, and Molly watch the chaos at bay. Moments like this make a New Yorker glad to be local. No rush, no hassle, no worry about losing luggage.

The bus pulls up just as Tootie hooks a sharp turn around the housemother and rolls out the door with an overstuffed suitcase in her hands and a pink book bag on her back. Mrs. Garrett yells at her to be careful and closes the door after Nancy's departure.

Natalie walks to the window, pulling back the curtain to watch the road.

Mrs. Garrett claps her hands together merrily. "Four down, four to go. When will your parents be arriving?"

"My parents should be here by three," Molly says.

"My ride will be here a little after five," Jo answers. "My uncle has to work but he promised to be here after he finished."

Mrs. Garrett nods understandingly.

"My mom told me to be ready an hour ago but—oh, that looks like her! See ya!" Natalie zips her coat, throws the hood up, tosses the longer end of her scarf over her shoulder dramatically and waves goodbye with her mitten-clad hand. She fumbles with the doorknob until the housemother helps her open it and then shuts it after she leaves. Five seconds later, Mrs. Garrett answers a thump on the door by handing Natalie her forgotten suitcase and telling her goodbye in a sing-song voice.

Blair folds her hands in her lap. "One of my father's cars should be here tomorrow. He has an exciting trip to Aspen planned. We've been eyeing a winter cabin there for quite some time now."

Jo and Molly share a look of contempt.

* * *

By seven that evening, Jo's stomach is growling and Mrs. Garrett is holding a hot bowl of reheated soup in front of her. Disappointment was delivered with a phone call; Uncle Sal wasn't going to make it after all. He told her that he was offered a heavy sum to repair the MG Midget of a millionaire's wife before her husband finds out. The job would take at least two days with overtime. Jo guesses she can't blame the guy for taking the opportunity. The car must have been banged up, and he did need the money. He promised to make it up to her. Still, she wants to go home. _Home_-home. She wants to see her mom.

Blair's car rolls up the following evening and Stewart, her driver, loads Blair's six suitcases for her. Jo can hardly believe it when her night manages to get worse. Mrs. Garrett tells Jo that she cancelled plans with her sister so she could stay and keep Jo company.

"Really Mrs. G," Jo pleads, "I don't wanna ruin your holiday."

Mrs. Garrett forms a sad, sweet smile and tells Jo that she wouldn't feel right leaving Jo all alone. Blair hears this in passing and stops glossing her lips.

"You aren't going home for Christmas?"

Jo shakes her head.

"Aren't you lucky. Christmas with the Warners is like the Hatfields and the McCoys if the Hatfields and the McCoys drank a lot of wine and had a taste for sensible fashion. My mom and whoever she is married to at the time try to be polite to my dad and whoever he his current floozy is but no matter where we go, by the end of it, I always find myself wishing I were here."

It's an odd feeling for Jo—when Blair is civil, that is. They have these reoccurring moments of clarity where the malice is gone and the only thing left is kindness. Like when thick fog lifts mid-day after hours of murkiness. Blair is trying to relate to her, or maybe make her feel better about her situation. Jo never knows how to react.

"Oh," she says dumbly.

Blair then tells her to not to go anywhere and heads out the front door, to which Jo turns to Mrs. Garrett and has to ask, "Where does she think I'm gonna go?"

As it turns out, Blair has connections. Under her decree, Stewart unloads the luggage, a group of 24-hour Warner chefs are scheduled to arrive at Eastland's cafeteria on Christmas Eve, Mrs. Garrett is sent home in Stewart's car, and Blair gets what she wanted from her parents: permission to stay at Eastland.

They sleep peacefully that night and embrace the silence that greets them in the morning. Jo doesn't question these random acts of compassion from her roommate. Instead, she chooses to enjoy what she assumes is the Christmas Spirit while it lasts. Just when Jo thinks Blair's magic has reached an impossible high, a familiar rhythmic knock comes from the front door. Blair's entire focus is on George Bailey's vow to rope the moon so Jo gets up and answers it.

"Ma!" Rose Polniaczek smiles brightly with open arms that Jo is more than glad to jump into. She nearly plows down her mom. "How'd you get here?!"

"You've got a good friend here who cares about you," she answers fondly into her daughter's hair. Jo pulls away, slightly confused. "It's good to see you, sweetheart."

"It's good to see you, too."

They hug again briefly before Jo lets her mother come on.

"You must be Blair," Rose says immediately.

Blair stands and extends her hand to Jo's mother with a warm smile. "Hello Mrs. Polniaczek. I trust the drive over was a pleasant one."

The woman nods happily. "Very. How can I ever repay you?"

"It was nothing. I'm just glad you were able to come on such short notice."

Rose thanks Blair and then goes on to explain the tale of how she had to feign illness for not one but two of her bosses to give her time off, faking sweaty palms with a washcloth and applying paler make-up the way she used to do as a teen. Jo watches Blair, looking for signs of repulsion, but finds no such thing. Later, as they pair up in the basement to find makeshift decorations for the sake of festivity, Blair casually mentions how delightful Rose is. Jo, bent down and searching through an unexplored box, is thankful that Blair has her back turned because she can't fight the smile that those words give her.

They dine in the school's cafeteria on every Christmas dish imaginable. The food is hot and mouthwatering, and every girl stuck at Eastland makes her round to thank Blair for setting up the delicious meal. She speaks with Antonio, the head chef, and promises to double the staff's Christmas bonus if they come again tomorrow. It's likely her father will have something to say about flushing his finances away on the help, but Blair can't find it in herself to care.

* * *

Robbie shows up at the door unexpectedly Christmas afternoon holding a gift with Jo's name scripted neatly on the tag. Jo hugs him and invites him in. Rose and Blair watch quietly from the couch as they converse. Robbie tells her that he planned to drop the present off and leave but that he was happy to see her. When Jo remembers to, she introduces him to her mother as her "uh, fr—uh, boy—uh, Robbie."

As he shakes the woman's hand, he charmingly greets, "Hi. I'm Jo's Robbie."

Rose laughs and smiles at her daughter standing off to the side rubbing the back of her neck.

Robbie says a quick hello to Blair before the couple politely excuses themselves; or rather Robbie politely excuses the both of them. They bundle up and head out into the cold, sweeping off and then resting on the bench in front of the building. Jo cups her hands and breathes into them as Robbie nervously toys with her gift.

"Here," he says finally, less confident than he had been with her mom minutes before. The tiny box he places in her palm is wrapped in red Santa Claus wrapping paper. Jo looks at it, rotates it, looks at Robbie, and looks at the box again. He chuckles. "It won't bite you."

The side of Jo's mouth quirks, but not in amusement. "I know that." Her fingers peal the wrapping carelessly. A velvet jewelry box.

"Open it," Robbie begs after sensing her apprehension.

She does and is surprised to find that he didn't buy her a necklace or a pair of earrings. He didn't buy her anything. He is _giving_ her his class ring.

"You don't have to accept it." Jo looks up at him. "But I thought that maybe you might. And, uh, I'm not good at this but..." _Oh, God_, Jo thinks. "You wanna go steady?" His voice cracks a little.

Wide-eyed and praying for someone to interrupt the moment but to no avail, Jo knows she owes him an answer. Where is Blair when she needs her? Where is her mother? Where are the delivery boy and the mailman and Mr. Bradley? Any other time, they would be here interrupting the moment.

"Robbie, I..."

"No?" He guesses, disappointed. "That's okay. I wasn't expecting you to say yes. That's why I wanted to leave it while you were gone."

"Robbie, I wanna go steady."


	7. Chapter 7

Winter vacation provides a surplus of stories. During her father's annual Warner New Years Eve Party in Manhattan, Blair becomes acquainted with a boy named Jason Hoss, the son of a business partner. He goes to Bates Academy—most of Warner Textile Mills partners from the New York chapter send their boys there or Stone Military Academy depending on their alma mater. Jason is heavily active in the drama department, not that anyone could tell by his impressive physique. His best features include a great smile and a keen sixth sense which tells him just when Blair needs another compliment. But it's the poetry that ultimately wins her over. He recites Shakespeare like the words are his own and does so in a way that makes her wish she could. The aesthetics, the rhythm, the cadence... Little do most people know, literary art has long since fascinated Blair, partially because she hasn't mastered it the way she has with visual art but mostly because of its sheer beauty. He whispers Sonnet 18 to her in the solidarity of the balcony under moonlight to which she responds by blushing and gently touching his bicep. He kisses her at midnight. When classes resume, Jason has a word with the director and scores Blair the part of Juliet. On top of it all, the worth of gold has skyrocketed. Compared to the others, Blair's life after the break is conspicuously radiant.

Roger forgets to meet Nancy at the airport like he promised he would. Nancy bursts through the front door of the common room mid-tirade after paying a hefty cab fare, spewing about men being dogs and how responsibility makes you an adult, not sideburns. Molly returns in a foul mood as well, explaining that her father moved out the day after Christmas. The girls with single and divorced parents pitch in and try to help her through it, explaining to her that even if they do divorce, things won't be so bad. She shuts them down quickly though and tells them this is something she needs to handle on her own. Mrs. Garrett senses Molly bottling her pain and confusion up but doesn't have a thing to say at the moment that would make this easier for her. Her only solution is to take the girls off to the side and ask them to help Molly if they can. When Cindy comes back, she doesn't say much about her trip home, but it's evident that something has happened. So evident that Jo considers asking on more than one occasion what the trouble is—she doesn't, but she hasn't ruled the possibility out. Tootie tells the girls the story about how she rolled over her grandma's toes after being told to take her skates off in the house and how she was grounded to her bedroom for an entire day. Nothing particularly upsetting happens to Natalie or Sue Ann, but they don't have the fortune of meeting handsome, wealthy poets at extravagant parties either.

What Jo did over the vacation is the real enigma. She shares no anecdotes with Mrs. Garrett or any of the girls about her time spent at the school after Blair left on the 29th, and she doesn't speak of the class ring Blair knows is hanging around her neck on a thin chain, tucked into her shirt. In fact, the only slice of information she shares with the others at all is how Blair generously splurged to give the girls sticking it out at school some tasty holiday meals. Blair didn't become The Grinch Who Gave Christmas for the credit, and she thinks Jo must know that. Why else would Jo not show gratitude? It isn't that Blair needs to hear the words "thank you" but it seems odd to her that the most thoughtful favor she has ever done wasn't significant enough for Jo to say _something_. She isn't a _total_ barbarian. And then there's the ring! Boys give girls rings when they're going together officially. Everyone in the world knows that. Why not tell anyone about it? And why try to hide it? The only reason Blair even knows there is a ring at the end of that chain is because it slides up and out while Jo is asleep.

It occurs to Blair to run this secret by Nancy or Sue Ann to see what they think, but she keeps her mouth shut. In the mean time, she and Jo are back to sidestepping each other, avoiding conversations beyond mild bickering. ("You and Jo are like R2-D2 and C-3PO," Sue Ann had recently joked.) The elephant in the room is Robbie, of course. Well for Blair it is. She hates the idea of Jo trying to keep secrets. Her one and only tactic is dropping hints. Blair has dropped so many since she first noticed the necklace that Jo must have caught on by now.

"Isn't it wonderful to have a man in your life?" she asks Nancy one afternoon. "You get to tell the whole world about him."

Nancy vapidly agrees and sees this as a chance to gush over her boyfriend. Jo doesn't flinch. Her eyes remain glued to a thick hardback book about poetry she checked out from the school library. All of Blair's small efforts to prompt the girl into an explanation are futile. Resorting to double agent Tootie Ramsey is sounding better and better all the time.

* * *

Somehow the girls find themselves watching _Archie Bunker's Place_ despite not liking the show or its predecessor. Instead of dwelling on whichever minority group or touchy subject the show chooses to make fun of this week, Molly saves herself the trouble and heads up to her room for the night. Tootie watches the TV upside-down with her feet dangling from the back of the chair, Natalie loosely braids the same section of Sue Ann's hair over and over, Jo lies lazily across the couch reading _Little Women_ by Louisa May Alcott, and Cindy works on her poem for class. She and Sue Ann had turned the coffee table into a makeshift loveseat. The only one making an effort to pay attention to _Archie_ at all is Sue Ann, and even she seems to be distracted. Jo entertains the idea that it might have something to do with the way Cindy is sitting no more than an inch away and leaning into her.

Mr. Bradley comes striding in through the side door. "Boy, doesn't that TV ever get turned off?"

Natalie says, "Give us a break, Mr. Bradley. This is Sunday and we devote our evening to the boob tube."

"Even when nothing's on," Jo dryly adds.

"Well I'm sure you've all finished your poetry assignments for tomorrow?"

"Does that poetry assignment really count for half our grade?" Sue Ann asks in a way that suggests she knows it does but that she's hoping he will change his mind.

"You better believe it. Now girls, I know that some of you think that poetry's nothing more than flowery words but it's not that. Some of life's great truths have been echoed by the poets. Byron, Shelley, Wordsworth…"

"Costello, Floyd, Devo…" Jo dares a small but mischievous smile when approximately three seconds later it registers on Mr. Bradley's face that he knows she's talking about musicians and not recognized literary figures. Judging by his lack of agreement, adding a rhythm to words makes them less poetic.

"Hi gang," Mrs. Garrett greets as she enters the room.

"Mrs. Garrett, the horizontal's wobbly again," Cindy says.

The housemother moves in to pound the TV with a meat mallet but Mr. Bradley interferes and arrogantly tries to remedy the situation himself by handling the cables. On cue, the power cuts out and the room goes dark. Groans fill the room. Mrs. Garrett lights a candle and talks Mr. Bradley into accompanying her to the fuse box on account of he's never worked on one and therefore probably won't make circumstances worse.

"I can help."

"Jo?" Mrs. Garrett voices to the general area of the girls in the middle of the dark room. "Was that you?"

"Yeah, I know a little about fuse boxes."

"Of course you do," comes from Mr. Bradley.

Jo drops her book on the cushion and follows the adults downstairs. The headmaster nearly tumbles over a box Jo and Blair had left out during their Christmas Eve expedition. _Oops_. When they make it to the wall, Mr. Bradley collects tools from a metal box and removes the blown fuse. Jo explains how to replace the wire but he fumbles so much with the screwdriver in the dark that Jo holds out her hand and waits. He turns to Mrs. Garrett with a face that says _Do I have to?_ before huffing loudly and placing the fuse, fuse wire, and screwdriver in Jo's palm.

"That should do it," she says proudly afterward, slipping the fuse back into place. Nothing happens.

"Funny," Mrs. Garrett says in observation. The room is still pitch-black save for the glow of the candle. "A working fuse box usually puts out a bit more light than this."

Mr. Bradley appears unimpressed. He hollers, "Is anything turned on up there, Tootie?"

"Yeah, but it's not the lights!" she calls back.

The three in the basement share a look of bemusement. Jo snaps her fingers upon discovering the problem and flips the master switch back on. She grins at her stone-faced headmaster, wordlessly gloating when the room illuminates.

Filled with curiosity and a sense of accomplishment, Jo springs up the stairs two at a time. After seeing Blair and a golden-haired boy looking everywhere but at each other however, the dots connect themselves and that extra buzz of energy drains away. _That's the guy Blair can't shut up about_? Jo stands there and doesn't hide the mild disgust from Blair.

"Blair," Mr. Bradley acknowledges. "What's going on here?"

"Think hard," Mrs. Garrett interjects. "You'll figure it out."

Blair steadies her voice as best as she can. "This is Jason Hoss. He's Romeo. T-To my Juliet."

"We were just rehearsing."

"Well rehearsal's over. Romeo."

"Well it's certainly been a stimulating evening," Blair says. The other girls hoot and guffaw at the sheepish couple. She offers her hand to him. "Jason."

"Oh, right." He laughs and shakes it before turning to leave.

"Goodnight, Romeo," Natalie sing-songs. He turns back sneeringly one last time before closing the door behind him. Blair jumps into attack mode, ready to give payback for the humiliation caused to her, but Mr. Bradley catches her by the arm.

"Blair, Blair. I know you have a very busy schedule starring in the school play, rehearsing with your leading man, but getting back to the old humdrum world of education I presume you have completed your poetry assignment for tomorrow?"

"Sure," she drawls. "Well, you know… Just have to put the polish on it."

"I don't care if you polish it or hot wax it. I want that poem on my desk tomorrow."

* * *

By eleven Jo is beat, but it doesn't matter. The light is on. The light will probably still be on in an hour. One of the "perks" of being Blair's roommate. Robbie's ring starts sliding up to her neck in the middle of a game of handheld Mattel electronic auto racing so she sits up and keeps going. Tootie comes rolling in, toothbrush in hand.

"What are you two doing up so late?"

"I'm fantasizing about cruising the strip and burning rubber. She's taking off her face and—Ah, get over! Get over! Yes! Ha-ha!—refusing to turn off the light."

Blair stops removing her makeup to glare at her roommate through the mirror. Then she turns to look at Tootie. "I'm writing my poem."

"You mean you haven't finished it _yet_?"

"I haven't even put on my moisturizer."

"Told you," Jo says, intensely preoccupied with the game. The beep of failure signals that she's lost. She exhales in defeat and tosses the gadget to the floor.

Tootie brushes her teeth and continues the conversation. "Never mind your moisture. You better write some poetry before Bradley hangs you outside to dry."

"I will, I will," Blair replies, clearly trying to convince herself as much as she is Tootie. "But first I have to get inspired."

"Should I send for Jason and his _magic lips_?" The girl bounces her eyebrows.

"If you do, send for a pail too so I have somethin' to throw up in."

"You guys are talking about the man I _may_ be pinned too."

Jo rolls her eyes at the notion. "On second thought Tootie, forget the pail. Any more of this Jason talk and I'll be pukin' my guts out before it gets here."

"Blair, get your head out of the clouds and focus. The only man you should be thinking about is Bradley."

"You're right. Maybe if I looked at some poetry it would help. I just have to get inspired." She gets up and walks over to the homework desk. The third and final book Jo checked out from the library sits on top. "_Poems of Emily Dickinson_. She can't be much. Look at the way she wears her hair."

"Sorta like Jo's," Tootie points out. They both laugh. She sobers after catching the brunette not taking kindly to the comparison.

"Let's see. 'Beauty crowds me till I die. Beauty mercy have on me. But if I expire today, let it be in sight of thee.'"

"I don't understand a word of that. It _must_ be good."

"It's a beautiful poem! You know, she writes the way I'd write...if I had the time." The roguish twinkle in Blair's eye makes Jo feel uneasy. "I'll just change a few lines! You know, to give it the Blair touch."

"Don't be stupid," Jo blurts. The aged mattress squeaks loudly as she stands. She makes her way over to the blonde. Stealing is a big deal no matter where you are. Plagiarism could get her kicked out of school. The ladies in the office stressed that to Jo repeatedly during registration, like they thought she was a high risk. "You're talkin' about cheating in front of the school parrot."

Tootie tilts her head.

"It's not stupid and it's not cheating. It's called _barrowing_, and it's brilliant. It would only be cheating if someone found out." The blonde moves closer to the poem and skims the page for a second time.

Jo reaches under the back cover swiftly and slaps the book shut. "It's cheating. Contrary to what I may think about you most of the time, I know you aren't that dumb, Blair."

"Maybe she is," suggests the preteen, tongue prodding into her cheek to keep from fully smiling. "Blair's a big girl. We should let her make her own decisions."

Jo crosses her arms. "Blair and I would like to have this conversation in private, Tootie. Do ya mind?"

"As a matter of fact…"

Tootie shuffles backward as fast as her little legs will allow. The taller, tougher girl accosts her with such intimidation that Tootie is out in the hall before she knows it.

"Good_night_, Tootie," Jo barks before shutting the door in her face.

When Jo turns around, Blair is standing. "What other option is there? I don't have time to write my own."

"Whose fault is that?"

"It's mine! It's all my fault. There. I said it. But this assignment is worth a lot, you know. I have to turn something in."

Jo pinches the bridge of her nose, looks over at her stack of books and folders in contemplation, and lets out an exasperated sigh before relenting. "I wrote a few before settling on one."

The blonde bites her bottom lip and takes a seat on her bed, eyeing her roommate curiously as she files through her things. Blair fights the urge to make a remark about not being able to hand in a poem that includes the words "duct tape" or "Turtle Wax." Alternatively she asks if Jo realizes that this is still considered cheating. "Even more so," she adds as an afterthought with her index finger pointed in the air, "because Emily Dickinson has been dead for almost a century. I sleep ten feet away from you."

"Do you want my help or not?" _I'll take that as a yes_, Blair thinks. _She realizes_. "Besides, you ain't stealing if I'm giving it to you."

Situations like this don't come without a clause though, a catch. Blair knows all about the unspoken obligations of favors. Her family has spread enough of their wealth to have connections with everybody who's anybody. If Blair were the type to toot her own horn, she wouldn't be entirely absurd to suggest members of the Carter Administration are among many who are indebted to the Warners. (Okay, so she _is_ the type and she _has_ implied it before but that's neither here nor there.)

"What do you want from me in return?" she needs to know.

Jo stops scanning her poems to look at Blair. "Want?"

Jo is well aware that she is going out on a pretty flimsy limb for Blair. Any number of missteps could send her falling on her face as a result. Mrs. Garrett could ground them again. Howard could hear about it and fire her just shy of the estimated total cost it will take to repair her bike. (She received a ten cent raise last week when he added table-washing to her list of tasks so getting canned now would be a big deal.) Worst case scenario? Mr. Bradley could kick them out of school. The fact of the matter is that Blair did something so considerate for Jo—bringing her mother to Eastland and all—that she can't think of a better way to repay her. This is supposed to set them even again, not put Jo ahead.

"Yes. You scratch my back so I have to scratch yours. What do you want, a new motorbike?"

"I don't… Uh..." Jo thinks this over. Should she follow her conscience or collect her favor? Follow her conscience…or collect her favor? How big of an idiot does this make her if she lets the opportunity slip by? (Answer: A very big one.) Nevertheless… "Forget about it. We're even."

Blair purses her lips after drawing the same conclusion and nods appreciatively.

Jo hands Blair one vigilantly selected poem; there are five total. The first was agonizingly bland and so poorly executed that Tootie could do a better job. Tootie _did_ do a better job. It was scrapped right away. The second wasn't too bad. She had checked out _How to Write a Poem Like a Poet_ by then to pick up some pointers. Her third poem was decent, safe. She wrote about the meaningless value of material possessions. There is some irony in the poem coming from Blair, but Jo gives it to her anyway. _Maybe Mr. B will think Blair is secretly deep and profound_. The fourth was great. She felt satisfied with her work, having finished the book and utilized the suggestions to delineate a nostalgic picture of Jo's childhood in vivid detail. Personal like Mr. Bradley wants but not enough to make Jo feel exposed. Perfect for the assignment. The fifth was her best without a doubt. Reaching into the innermost cruxes of her emotions, Jo was determined to pull out all the anxiety and suffocation she currently felt. But then, after the teenage angst was out on paper in front of her, she didn't want anyone to see it. Jo Polniaczek does not talk about those kinds of things.

* * *

"Jo..."

"Yeah?" Jo tiredly answers. She had come right up to their room after work and uncharacteristically not paused to change out of her uniform before crash-landing on her bed. Howard was out sick today, and Mr. Bradley gave Jo an extra long list of responsibilities to balance out her fill-in boss's lack of experience in kitchen clean-up. Howard will have a good laugh when he hears about her doing even more work in "a woman's place," she'll tell him he belongs in a petting zoo with the other asses, and he'll let her go five minutes early that day to compensate, almost like he holds an ounce of compassion for her. She's not sure that he does, but she does know he isn't entirely evil. That's their odd but strangely pleasant employer-employee relationship.

"Would you mind helping me rehearse for the play?" Jo doesn't answer right away but she rolls over to meet her roommate in the eye. Blair further explains, "Jason has much more experience with acting and with Shakespeare. The problem is that it's hard to work on my performance without another person."

Blair's shy request is unsettling. Jo notices she had an open opportunity to gloat about being great but needing to be _greater_—which would have been a lie but a typically sugarcoated Blair one—but instead, she took the modest route. Modesty isn't necessary. Jo has always been secretly fascinated by the Bard of Avon and his work. Helping Blair rehearse could be fun.

"Say no more. Shakespeare's my man." Thoughts of her fatigue long forgotten, she hops over to Blair's bed. An extra copy of the play is there next to her so she picks it up.

"You know I'm talking about _William_ Shakespeare, right?" Blair asks, unable to hide her surprise.

Jo does her best not to laugh. "I know that sounds wild. Where are we at, Princess?"

"Act 1, Scene 5," she answers automatically, shoving away the funny feeling that swells up in her chest upon hearing the nickname. The way a word previously used to insult her has been twisted affectionately catches Blair by surprise. "You are Juliet's nurse."

Jo nods and flips to the appropriate page finding herself inexplicably grateful not to be given the part of Romeo.

Blair clears her throat and squares her shoulders with the brunette. "Come hither, nurse. What is yond gentleman?"

"The son and heir of old Tiberio," Jo answers.

"What's he that now is going out of door?"

"Marry, that, I think, be young Petruchio."

"What's he that follows there, that would not dance?"

"I know not."

"Go ask his name. —If he be married. My grave is like to be my wedding bed."

A pause for realism and then, "His name is Romeo, and a Montague; the only son of your great enemy."

"My only love sprung from my only hate. Too early seen unknown, and known too late."

"Hang on," Jo says, slipping her finger into the crease of the book before letting it fall shut. Blair looks up. "You gotta loosen up. You're readin' Juliet like she's an alien or something. She's _thirteen_. She _really_ likes this guy. She's obsessive. He's basically her Donny Osmond. I'm not getting Donny Osmond-obsessed from you."

"Oh," Blair responds, visibly embarrassed. "Jason doesn't tell me how to… He doesn't give me any tips. I know I'm not perfect, but he tells me I'm wonderful and, well, who am I to argue with him there?" She smiles briefly. "The director isn't terribly involved either. Normally I have no problem acting and I never get stage fright, but with the language and with Jason's idea of rehearsal…"

Jo pats Blair's leg, deliberately ignoring that last detail. If she never heard Jason's name again it would be too soon. "Hey, you're doin' fine. Try something for me though. Try reading the lines to yourself first and then sayin' them to me."

Blair looks at Jo with unsure eyes and then down to the play. Her brow furrows in the midst of her newfound determination. Lines memorized, she looks up and takes a breath.

"My only love sprung from my only hate! Too early seen unknown, and known too late!" Blair cries. She repeats the lines quietly to herself, putting emphasis on one word and then another. "Prodigious birth of love it is to me," she says softer, locking eyes with Jo, "that I must love a loathed enemy."

"What's tis? What's tis?" Blair loses herself in something Jo can't determine, seemingly awestruck. "Blair, your line."

Eyes now fallen to the book once more, Blair reads, "A rhyme I learn'd even now of one I danced withal." The words coming from her mouth somehow sound more foreign than when they started.

Jo mentally asks an explanation of her roommate. The sudden change, the way she went from strong and passionate to detached and inaudible. Blair's cheeks and ears flush hotly. Instead of rationalizing her weird behavior, she takes the two copies of Romeo and Juliet and shoves them in her baguette.

"Thanks for the help, Jo. We should do this again sometime. I'm going to go call Jason."

She hurries out of the room so fast that Jo doesn't have time to say, "You're welcome."

* * *

Days pass. As if the uncertainty of poem grades weren't enough, Jo and Blair find their relationship clouded with even more uncomfortable and building silent tension. Whatever friendly vibes that were created with Jo sharing her poem Sunday night had been lost on that following Tuesday afternoon in their dorm room. Jo put forth an effort to keep it alive at first, but Blair's response was minimal. The script flipped 180 degrees. Blair's interest in getting her friend to confess to dating someone was long gone. Not even an illicit trap normally guaranteed to start a fight—Jo set the alarm an hour too early this morning—could prompt words.

To make matters worse, Jo has to deal with her current regret: Robbie. So, it is possible that accepting to be Robbie's girlfriend was a mistake. She can admit that to herself. It isn't that he creeps her out or pesters her the way that lanky, curly-headed boy from the arcade who always smells like pastries does. Jo likes Robbie. And she _does_ want a boyfriend. Having a boyfriend means you never have to dread the night when all your friends are out on hot dates while you're stuck watching _The Love Boat_ with your housemother. But Robbie isn't Robbie when Jo is his girlfriend. He calls her every day (four times as often as he used to), stops by unannounced when he knows she'll be home (which he never did before), asks her what she's thinking if she stays quiet for too long (which he _did_ do before and it grated her nerves even then), and doesn't stop being the perfect boyfriend for a second. It's _obnoxious_. Jo needs more space than that. The ring hasn't been kept in hiding because she's ashamed of him, just that she's afraid she agreed to something that she might want to take back. She can't tell everyone who her boyfriend is and then break up with him. If she did… Well, that would make her Blair.

"Hello? … Jo, it's for you. It's _Rooobbie_," Cindy warbles. Like flies to sugar, the other girls in the room as well as Mrs. Garrett look over their shoulders at the sound of a boy's name.

Jo looks at the other girls—all of which are looking at her now—and walks over to the phone. Cindy stands close by, waiting to overhear phrases or keywords that would indicate juicy gossip she could report to the others. Jo brings out her death glare instantly, one Cindy knows all too well means _You're my friend but I _will_ hurt you._ The tomboy returns to her seat.

"Hi."

"_Hey Jo, it's me!"_

She subconsciously grips tighter to the receiver. "How's it goin'?"

"_What do you think about a party tonight? Tumpy Barksdale and the gang are throwing one. Nothing too crazy. I've been to a few. They're a lot of fun." _

Jo can tell he is trying his hardest to sell the idea to her by the tone in his voice. "Um," is the first thing that comes to mind. What is she supposed to say? _Tumpy and all her squirrelly friends hate my guts?_

"_You hate the idea_," he says in that way of his when he thinks he's been shot down. "_You know what? That's okay. We can, uh, go to a drive-in or something. I've heard that Star Trek movie is good, or that one with Steve Martin… Whatever you feel like doing_."

She doesn't even have to be in the same room as him to know he's wearing his frown of eternal sadness. Jo feels like burying her face in her hands and groaning in frustration but what she needs right now is to not attract more attention to herself.

"It's not that," she says. "It's… That crowd and me don't have the best track record is all. They don't wanna see me hanging around there."

"_Jo_," he laughs. She hates the way her name rolls off his tongue. "This isn't a regular party." Robbie says something else that Jo misses because Mr. Bradley comes through the door with poetry grades.

"Robbie, Mr. Bradley is here with our grades. I have to go." She pretends not to hear his plea for her to wait and hangs up the phone.

Mr. Bradley regally prepares to announce the grades.

"Blair: A plus." Jo looks over to Blair.

_I'd like to thank the Academy_, Jo fantasizes with a face-splitting smile the moment she hears that Blair's average poem gave her the best grade possible when the poem Jo turned in was even better, _and my mother for this A plus-plus. And I'd like to thank Mr. B for making the extra plus possible. I couldn't have done this without you._

"Jo: B minus." _What?!_

Mr. Bradley then unloads the low-grade bombs. Cindy and Nancy earn C's. Natalie and Sue Ann earn C minuses. Molly receives a D. Tootie requests to keep her grade a secret. She grows wide-eyed at the sight of red ink and tucks the sheet in her shirt. Blair got the best grade in the dorm. Jo starts thinking Mr. Bradley doesn't know what he's doing. That poem Blair turned in was no better than Cindy's and Nancy's.

"How did Blair get an A plus?" Sue Ann demands to know.

_Just what I was thinking_, Jo fumes.

"A plus, Blair! That's wonderful!" Blair halfheartedly smiles with a ducked head at the housemother's praise. Jo shoves her balled fists into the pockets of her jeans, angered by the modest sight. _Mr. Bradley must've eaten up that phony bologna facade about Blair being repulsed by wealth_, she concludes. Then it hits her that she has no right to be upset. Sharing her poem with the blonde makes this all her fault. That makes her _more_ upset. Mrs. Garrett tries to maintain her typical neutral stance. "But why did the other girls get such low grades?"

"Yeah!" they cry.

The headmaster explains, "I marked it on a curve. I'm just sorry I couldn't give you more than an A plus, Blair."

"What else could he give her?" Natalie deadpans. "A weekend in Bermuda?"

The older woman attempts to negotiate with Mr. Bradley by pointing out the unfairness of grading on a curve. His response is that life isn't fair and that Blair is "extraordinarily gifted." The nagging thought in Jo's mind is that he would have never told _her_ she was gifted. _What a sleazeball_.

"Let me read you the poem," he insists, convinced that this will persuade the girls to see his side of things. When he does, it all comes together. The poem Mr. Bradley reads is Jo's best poem. Her private poem, not meant for the eyes of others. She feels exposed. Mr. Bradley looks up with arched eyebrows when he finishes, as if to say, _Well? Do you see now?_ "The eloquence. The pain. The poise in the agony. We have a true artist in the making."

"What an extraordinary poem," Mrs. Garrett agrees when he hands her the paper. "Slightly alarming," she notes, "but stunning."

"I know I'm stunned," Jo irately whispers.

* * *

"Now Jo, I-I know you're angry but hear me out. The poem you gave me was…_nice_, but who would ever believe that I would put down the very system that made me? Heck, I'm grateful for capitalism."

Blair is a babbling, nervous mess and the way Jo is clenching her fists isn't helping any. She had anticipated anger and possibly some shouting if Jo were to find out that she crept over to Jo's side of the room later that night and picked out a better poem, but that was all theoretical. In reality, Jo is a much more frightening sight. Jo, in reality, can hurt her.

"So you thought you'd steal my poem?!"

To make matters, she already regrets her actions. She regretted them not long after handing Mr. Bradley the sheet. She did something she knows is wrong, Mr. Bradley is waving it in her face, and now she has to try to spare herself some dignity in front of Jo by defending what she did.

"Need I remind you gave me the poem?" she tries.

"No. I gave you _a_ poem. The one I gave you was the one I wanted you to have."

Jo pops the knuckles in her right hand and then in her left. Blair takes a precautionary step back.

"That's… That's true but you wrote better ones. And you know me; I need the best of everything."

Jo literally groans out loud at the excuse. "_Blair_. Did it ever occur to you that there was a reason I kept my best poem to myself?" Blair doesn't answer her. "Damn it, Blair. Leave my stuff alone! Leave _me_ alone. And find yourself another reading partner."

The room suddenly feels small and confining. Jo plans to leave as soon as she thinks of somewhere to go. Then she remembers. Jo throws a sweater over her head in a rush and snatches a pair of gloves from her dresser top.

"Where are you going?"

"Out."

* * *

"I'm glad you called me back, Jo." Robbie glances over at her from the driver's seat. He got his license recently and had been trying to talk her into a ride around town in his dad's corvette but she's been good at sounding busy.

"So," Jo says as she glances at her passing surroundings, "Tumpy lives out in the woods?"

He explains, "The party is out here. She's just the one paying for everything. You'll love it! No neighbors complaining about noise and no cops busting the place up."

Robbie turns sharply off the street and onto a path of worn-down grass and tire tracks. Jo clings to the bottom of the passenger seat when she thinks he might hit a tree. He laughs benevolently, maneuvering up the path like he's done this many times, and takes the hand closest to him in his own. Soon enough they're surrounded by parked cars and the glow of a bonfire is in the distance. Robbie finds an open spot and parks between two pine trees. He unclicks his seatbelt and gets out so Jo does to.

"This is some kinda joke, right?" The cold had eased up a bit and the snow melted but it was still far from comfortable.

"I probably should have told you to grab a coat," Robbie snickers as he slides his letterman jacket on. "Let's go find a spot by the fire."

He peals back a cluster of tree brush and lets Jo walk through. Instantly, she knows where she is. They had come from the opposite direction but to the same place, the meadow with the broken tombstones and glass shards and picnic tables that are barely standing. It wasn't abandoned at all. Blair had been wrong.

Robbie slides his arm over Jo's shoulder as they come into the clearing together. He can't help but notice how tense she is.

"Would you relax? It's a party. Be a sport." Be a sport. Robbie's _favorite_ phrase. Jo sometimes wants to kick him where it counts and tell him to be a sport, just to see what he would say. Then he tags on, "They know you're my girlfriend."

She uncomfortably asks, "Your friends know we're together?" That would explain the scrutinizing eyes on them as they make their way across the field past groups of huddled stoners.

"Well sure. We've been together for nearly a month now. Why, don't yours?"

"My friends? Yeah, my friends know," she finds herself lying.

"Robster!" That rich guy from that date back in November trots around the fire once they come into his view wearing a Red Sox jacket and jeans with a joint in his hand, not at all how she remembers seeing him last time. _What was his name? Dennis? Donald? _Jo knows Blair isn't as rebellious as she pretends to be no matter how many men she claims to have been with and no matter how many cigarettes she bums off of edgy, radical 20-somethings. If she were, she would have known the meadow isn't a discarded dump and that her previous suitor could pass for a new-generation hippy when he isn't trying to impress her. As hard as she tries, Blair isn't the kind of girl to get invited to a place like this. She isn't the kind of girl who _belongs_ in a place like this. Strangely it makes Jo not want to be here either. The guy high-fives Robbie_._ "How ya doing, man? We figured you were a no-show."

"Had to make a pit-stop," he says, giving Jo's shoulder a squeeze.

"Well if it isn't the legendary Jo," he greets like he's only now seeing her and like it's the first time in life. _Daniel. That's his name._ "I have _heard_ some _things_ about _yooou_."

"Good things I hope," she tries with a smile but wants to buckle under the discomfort. She knows he's high and probably drunk as well, which isn't new to her but these people aren't her friends from The Bronx. They're strangers.

"Man, look who it is," comes from a girl making her way over to where Jo and Robbie stand. Another girl joins her. Tumpy is one of them. Jo forgets the other's name but knows it ends in a y. "Rob and Jo. Isn't this the cutest?"

"_Really_," the tranquil one agrees before dropping her beer can to the grass. "The _cutest_." They turn to one another and laugh.

"Hi Tumps," Robbie acknowledges. She nods hello in his direction.

Jo slips her arm around Robbie's waist under his coat as they shamelessly and scrutinizingly look her over. He pulls her close, mistaking her act of anxiety for an act of affection, and kisses the top of her head.

"Dude, so you date guys?" asks the tranquil one.

If she were having a conversation with anyone else she would think she misheard the question, but after that day in gym class she knows how they can be and what they've probably said about her.

"I'm not sure what you mean," she says anyway.

"You know," Tumpy cuts in. "You and Rob. We all thought you and that chick with the braided pigtails were totally doin' it. Then one day Rob comes up and says you and him are doin' it instead."

Jo winces at the crude choice of words.

"She's paraphrasing," he coolly corrects.

"_Riiight_," Daniel drawls. "_Paraphrasing_."

"C'mon guys," Robbie warns.

Jo gets the feeling that she is the laughing stock of the party, and that Robbie might have known this would happen. It takes thirty minutes of insistent nagging, the cold shoulder, and signature glaring but Jo manages to coerce Robbie into leaving the bonfire and driving her back to Eastland after he has a few beers and a few hits of Daniel's joint. She stays sober, even when he tells her to be a sport.

* * *

"Mrs. Garrett?" Blair stands in the doorway, uncharacteristically coy. It had taken her half an hour to muster up the courage to go to Mrs. Garrett after Jo left.

"Blair, how nice of you to stop by. Come in, come in. Have a seat." The housemother waves her in and pats the spot next to her on her bed. The large curlers rolled up in her red hair suggest she was preparing to turn in early. Blair does as told. Mrs. Garrett recognizes a need for advice right away. "What can I do for you?"

"I have a problem," the blonde starts. She struggles with how bluntly she can phrase her issues without revealing all of her cards. "It's about a boy. Or, no. Two boys. _Two _boys. I have a problem with two _boys_. No. I have two problems, one with two boys and another one. Another problem." Blair sighs audibly and shakes her head at the way that came out. _A little preparation wouldn't have killed me_, she thinks.

"Oh? Well how about the boys first," Mrs. Garrett suggests.

"Well as you have probably heard, I expect Jason Hoss from Bates Acadamy will pin me any day now. I'm almost certain he wants to go together publicly."

Mrs. Garrett guesses, "And this is where the other boy comes in?"

"Right. See, Jason is ideal. Smart, poetic, talented; he compliments me constantly. But _the other boy_," Blair carefully repeats, "is, in some ways, just as worthy of my affection as Jason. The other boy is very similar. Smart, poetic, talented… Sh—" Blair pretends to cough to cover up the pronoun misstep she nearly made. "Pardon me. What I was going to say is that, _sure_, the other boy is a lot to deal with and he has baggage but that's was so fascinating about him. He's stimulating, for lack of a better word. I'm never bored. With Jason I'm bored."

Mrs. Garrett narrows her eyes and says, "Let me see if I understand you correctly. Jason is the smart, poetic, talented boy from the play who you spend all your time with and who you might be going steady with?" Blair nods. "But you would prefer to be with the more exciting boy? Even though he makes things difficult for you?" Blair hesitates but nods. "Girls are asking for trouble when they choose to date complicated boys. Trust me, I know."

"So you don't think I should tell him?"

Dumbfounded by Blair's all-around demure conduct when it comes to this boy, Mrs. Garrett asks, "He doesn't know?"

Blair shakes her head. "We're, um, currently not on good terms, and the feelings I have for h-him are fairly new. It's complicated."

Mrs. Garrett cracks a smile and bobbles her head. "Oh, to be young and naïve again. Follow your heart, Blair. It'll tell you what to do. Just don't go stringing poor Jason along if you're waiting for the other boy, alright? Honesty is what matters."

Blair smiles appreciatively for the wise words but remembers why else she had come down. "Which brings us to problem two. Mrs. Garrett, there's something else I haven't been honest about."

* * *

Jo storms through the door to her dorm and slams it behind her. "I could kill them all. I really could. Wouldn't regret it one bit either."

She has Blair's attention immediately. The blonde stops filing her nails and readjusts the way her elbows are digging into her mattress to watch her roommate fumble around the room, disposing of clothes as she goes and replacing them with a saggy pair of pajama pants and a T-shirt.

"It turns out that that meadow on Oakland Avenue isn't some abandoned joint after all. Your sleazy Group friends and my bonehead boyfriend party there. _In_ _thirty-degree weather_."

"I don't believe it!" Blair protests, disregarding her unannounced vow to not interact with Jo.

"Neither do I. The least he could have done was tell me to bring my jean jacket."

Blair shakes her head. "No, not _that_."

_Shoot_. Jo said it. Without realizing it, the title slipped past her lips. She didn't mean to say it. Oh well. It's out there now.

"Look, Blair. I was gonna tell you about Robbie but I wasn't sure—"

"Not that either. I don't believe they're throwing parties without inviting me!"

Jo sniffles, still reeling from the elements. "Oh. Well it's true."

"They threw a party," Blair clarifies.

"Yeah."

"But they didn't invite me."

"Right."

"But _you_ were there. With _my_ friends."

"Yeah, Blair."

Blair's face plops into her quilt. She lets out a muffled wail of anguish.

Jo rolls her eyes. "I don't understand the people in this town. You guys… We…" she corrects. "We have everything we need here. I just don't _get it_." Her hands steadily become more and more animated as she talks. It's a Polniaczek thing. "Why do they need to get high? You should'a seen 'em, Blair. They were acting like a bunch of spacey idiots. And for what?"

Blair blinks and watches her move back across the room to her dresser where she starts rifling through and looking for God knows what.

Jo continues while digging. "Now my friends? They would drink to forget about stuff. Me too, sometimes. We had real problems, y'know? Real reasons. But here, these rich kids are looking for a good time. That's all they're doing." Jo locates her silver flask she hasn't touched in months and holds it up to take a good look at it. She then empties the remnants of Amaretto out the window. "Breaking the law is one thing. But they're out there _driving_. They're gonna end up like me and you if they aren't careful. I know I'll never risk it again." She glances down briefly at the small scar left on her forearm, never knowing whether or not the booze had any part in their wreck. She heads back over to the dresser, picks out an old and particularly ratty shirt with her uncle's car shop logo on the back, and wraps the flask in it to keep it concealed. Tomorrow, the flask would be trash. Some habits are better off in the past. "Didn't you people see _Scared Straight!_?"

They fall into a conversation after that, recounting that first evening Jo stayed at Eastland. How Blair credited that night as the first real adventure she'd ever had. How Jo still felt guilty about drenching Blair in alcohol. How Blair was grateful that Jo insisted on her wearing the helmet and jacket. How Jo had to stand there in front of Mr. Bradley and Mrs. Garrett like a motionless scarecrow and pretend that her arms weren't burning like an inferno…which is much funnier in memory than it was _as_ it was happening. They both laugh about how silly they had behaved now.

Noting how late it's getting, Jo asks, "Have you seen Cindy? She'll want to know how things went with Robbie." Blair sends her a questioning look. "I'm not going to rat out your friends or tell her about their extracurricular activities, don't worry."

Cindy is probably in her room, Jo knows. They have a curfew, even on a Friday night; where else would she be? Blair seems as if she has something else to say but she doesn't answer Jo's question, so the brunette heads for the door.

"I told the truth about the poem," Blair calls in a small, wavering voice. Jo stills and then turns around. "Mr. Bradley, Mrs. Garrett, and the girls all know. Don't worry. Your name never came up."

"What do you mean?"

Blair pulls herself up into a sitting position on her bed, crossing her legs. Eyes averted, she explains, "No one knows you wrote it. I said I found the poem, that someone must have dropped it and I found it on the way to class. Mr. Bradley believed me and withdrew my name from the New York State Poetry Festival." She inhales and exhales once slowly before continuing. "You'll be happy to hear that I've been forced to withdraw from the play as well, that I'm grounded, and that I have to repeat English lit next year. Also Jason and I are over…but that had nothing to do with this. Are you happy now?"

She asks "Are you happy now?" but what she means is "Are we okay again?" and Jo knows it.

Instead of the expected laughter or taunting or "serves you right," Jo shrugs and conveys that she isn't happy necessarily—though she may be partly satisfied with justice. "Sorry to hear that. Thanks for not mentioning me."

Which translates to "We're okay."

* * *

The light from beneath Cindy and Sue Ann's door is bright so Jo knows someone is in there. Given the time of night, it's probably both of them. On any given night, Cindy would be throwing a baseball or a football in the air and catching it from her bed while she waits for Sue Ann to finish doing homework or reading. Jo opens the door like she would any other time—without knocking.

"Hey, Cindy? … Sorry! I didn't—I didn't see, uh… _Sorry_."

Jo is so flustered over the situation that she ducks back into the hallway and turns away from the door, not quite sure if she can go back into her own room with Blair and _not_ wear a face that says "I just saw Cindy and Sue Ann kissing." Not a minute later, Sue Ann's distinctively strong strawberry Sunshine Harvest Shampoo scent wafts behind Jo followed by fast-sounding footsteps in the opposite direction.

There it is: the truth, rearing its unsightly head. Jo just accidentally uncorked a shaken bottle of champagne. Her first instinct was right, as was Cindy. Sue Ann _definitely_ likes her.

* * *

**Author's ****note**: I couldn't resist turning Jo's canon love for poetry and Shakespeare into a plot device for this chapter. Sue me. Kudos to anyone who noticed Jo was reading the novel of her namesake. Kudos to anyone who noticed the brief mentioning of Roy. Also yay! Things are happening in the story! Finally!

Before you say "But hey, wait a minute. Blair was expressing disapproval of same sex relationships a chapter ago. What's the deal?" I know. That will be answered through Blair's narrative soon. Homegirl had a change of heart.

As always, feel free to point out my errors. I know they exist.


End file.
